Opinion 4 From the Daily: Other ways to unplug City Council's ears Photo 12 Experience Ozzfest AJbr £ibigan 4a7Iv Monday, August 8,2005 Summer Weekly One-hundredfourteen years of editorial freedom www.micaganday.com Ann Arbor, Michigan Vol. CXV, No. 137 @2005 The Michigan Daily IN MEMORY OF TWO CITIES ACLU sues state police By Jeremy Davidson Daily News Editor The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan has chal- lenged a law that allows police to issue Breathalyzer tests to civilians under the age of 21 without a search warrant. Under current state law, it is illegal to refuse a Breathalyzer test, which measures blood alcohol content. If a person refuses to submit to the test they are guilty of a civil infraction, and 1fnmay be punished with a $100 fine, or by being arrested. The ACLU filed a federal lawsuit last Thursday on behalf of two women in Saginaw County against Thomas Township 4 -police. Katie Platte, one of the women the ACLU is representing, said she a O was forced to submit to the test while sitting outside of her friend's house by the pool in the late afternoon. Thomas Township police told Platte and her friends that if they didn't submit to a Breathalyzer test, they would be taken to jail. The test revealed that Platte, who is now a student at Saginaw Val- ley State University,hadnot been drinking, and she was not punished, but she was still forced to submit to an unconstitutional search. "You're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but in this case young people are assumed guilty until they prove they're inno- cent," Platte said. Department of Safety spokeswoman Diane Brown said that in accordance with the state law, students who refused to take the test wouldbe cited with a civil infraction. The DPS policy appears to be stricter than that of the Ann Arbor Police Department. AAPD officers do not issue citations to individu- als who refuse a Breathalyzer test, but added that a police officer Franklin and Noel Kramer of Washington, D.C. passed by the "Remember Hiroshima" writings near the Michigan Union last Sunday. Along South could still have the ability to charge someone, by either a sobriety State Street, painted body outlines served to remind people of August 6, 1945 - the day Hiroshima were bombed. test, or by obtaining a search warrant, AAPD Deputy Police Chief Gregory O'Dell said. See ACLU, Page 3 Gannet purchases Detroit ree Press The purchasing of the Free Press makes Gannet Co. the largest newspaper chain in the United States. By Anne VanderMey For the Daily The Knight Ridder publishing company sold the Detroit Free Press to media giant Gannet Co. last Thursday, prompting concerns from some that the quality of Michigan's largest newspaper would suffer under the nation's largest corporate publishing chain. The Free Press was one of six papers that trad- ed hands that day as Knight Ridder and Gannett upset the media market in four different states. The Detroit News, Michigan's second most widely circulated paper, formerly controlled by Gannett, was sold to a smaller private company called MediaNews Group. The transaction will make the Free Press the crowned jewel of Gannett's formidable collec- tion of newspapers in southeastern Michigan. It already owns Hometown Communications Network Inc., a newspaper company that serves Detroit and neighboring counties, and Third Street Publications, which delivers magazines to the suburbs of Detroit. All this did not come as good news to Jack Lessenberry, Wayne State University journalism professor and former foreign correspondent and executive national editor of the News. "Some of us already had concerns that Gannett was too dominant," he said Friday. Lessenberry expressed fear that the edi- torial style of the Free Press was likely to change. "Gannett tends to make papers dull and mediocre," Lessenberry said. Lessenberry is not the only one who is crit- ical of Gannett's track record in producing quality journalism. Terry Foster, sports writer for the News under Gannett, felt the company was so pre- occupied with turning a large profit that it shied away from good stories if it thought they might inflame customers or advertisers. "If they felt that something was too offen- sive for the community, they didn't want to report it," Foster said. As an example, Foster cited a story he wrote about a father involved in the Amateur Athletics Union Junior Olympics who wanted to pull his three children out of the games. According to Foster, Gannett held the story from print, because of a marketing agreement held with AAU that prohibited any coverage that might reflect poorly on the organization. Alternatively, many people feel that Knight Ridder was as financially oriented as Gannett. Former Free Press reporter Michael Bet- zold, who now works for the Ann Arbor Observer, believes editorial procedure is not likely to be significantly changed by the Gan- nett takeover. When asked if he was worried about the developing corporate culture at the Free Press, Betzold said the Free Press's cred- ibility had already been compromised by the long and bitter labor dispute of the mid- 1990s. "They made the deal with the devil long ago," Betzold said. In contrast, some believe the new arrange- ment with Gannett and MediaNews is a posi- tive change. Since 1989 the two papers have published under a joint operating agreement, and although the owners split the profits equally, many felt the terms of the agreement left the News at a distinct disadvantage. Under the revised agreement, the Detroit News will become a morning paper, put- ting it into direct competition with the Free Press, which had formerly controlled the more profitable morning market. But only the Free Press will be allowed to produce a Sunday paper. Renewed competition between the News and the Free Press in the morning market should incite both papers to put more resourc- es toward the newsrooms, University commu- nications professor Ben Burns said. He added that, because the Detroit News now has the ability to distribute a morning paper, it has a fighting chance to compete. Media analyst John Mortonof Morton Research agreed. "As an afternoon paper, it wasn't a ques- tion of if (the News would close down), it was a question of when," he said. He also notedthat an added advantage for the News will be the leader- ship of MediaNews Group CEO Dean Singleton, whom Morton praised for turning an underdog paper, the Denver Post, into a prominent state- wide competitor. In addition to new corporate leadership, See FREE PRESS, Page 3