Tompor, a Loeb winner, talks about prize-winning work

Detroit Free Press personal finance columnist Susan Tompor was awarded a Gerald Loeb Award on Tuesday evening for her coverage of the city of Detroit’s bankruptcy and how it is affecting retirees of the city.

Tompor has a passion for digging deep into the fine print and extra fees associated with credit cards, debit cards, payday loans and some other not-so-hot deals.

Tompor, a graduate of Michigan State University, also has a master’s of business administration degree from Bellarmine University in Louisville, Ky. She enjoys writing about taxes, saving for retirement and other financial issues that affect everyday pocketbooks. Tompor loves a good coupon — and knew she was looking at the right man when he admitted on their first date that he thought about bringing a coupon for dinner.

Tompor has won several other several journalism awards, including awards from the Michigan Associated Press and the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She has served on the board of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers and has appeared on C-Span and as part of a panel for the Detroit Economic Club.

She spoke by email with Talking Biz News this week about her Loeb-winning coverage. What follows is an edited version of that conversation.

Most of us are familiar with Detroit’s bankruptcy as a news story. How did you write about it as a personal finance story?

As a columnist, I have often tackled specific issues facing the community. In the past, for example, I worked on explaining pension issues and buyouts facing auto workers.

So it was natural that I was asked to cover the pensioners as creditors in the Chapter 9 bankruptcy. The city pensions are not covered under the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., unlike pensions at General Motors or Chrysler.

I examined the cuts the city retirees faced. I was part of the bankruptcy team meetings that took place since April 2013.

For about 18 months, I wrote about the steep proposed cuts, the financial challenges, how some thought about cutting back spending. The case had a unique aspect later in the bankruptcy called the clawback. Several thousand retirees would take steeper cuts out of their retirement savings accounts to shore up the pensions.

It was an odd twist and one that had to be examined in the coverage. I dug into the weeds on that clawback more than others in the competition and that helped distinguish our coverage. I think it was good to have some people focus on specific parts of the coverage. My focus was the financial hit on retiree pocketbooks.

The first story in your series had a lot of examples of people. How did you find them?

I spent much time building a portfolio of retiree contacts. I gathered names outside of hotel lobbies where retirees held meetings, contacted retiree group leaders, found retirees through other retirees. Some co-workers provided names of people they met at events.

The bankruptcy file itself at one point listed all the retirees. But it only had addresses and not phone numbers. It did not prove to be a good source of contacts for me, as some were older and not always easy to interview or contact. It was time consuming finding phone numbers and it did not work well for me. I might have talked with one or two retirees out of that list.

Sometimes retirees would reach out to me by email and their comments or questions helped I direct some coverage.

I also reached out to some financial planners who worked with city of Detroit clients and met some retirees this way as well.

How much time did you spend reading through all of the documents filed by the city?

I cannot remember exactly. I am guessing about 15 hours over time. There were three documents that applied to retiree creditor voting. Health care, and pension issues for general system retirees and pensions for uniformed police and fire.

Initially I talked with bankruptcy experts to see what to look for in the documents. We wanted the guide to come out around the time that retirees would receive their paperwork in the mail.

Nathan Bomey, a business reporter on the team, had a great system for monitoring overall filings. He and others tracked most of the paperwork for the overall bankruptcy coverage.

I focused on retirees.

Your second story was written in a first-person voice, while the first story was more third-person. Why did you decide to do that?

I felt it was honest to give my impression of the process. I had older parents and understood how hard it would be to handle all that reading of legal documents. This was far worse than a mortgage statement or anything anyone would have seen in the past.

I felt it was genuine to say: Hey, this is overwhelming. Perhaps loved ones would help their retirees read this stuff.

How did you balance between giving Detroit retirees information and advocating that they vote one way or another?

I always maintained it was not my role to tell anyone how to vote. Retirees did not have good options, if they voted no. The money in the Grand Bargain would go away with a no vote. But to tell people how to vote to me would compromise my role going forward. It was a highly polarizing issue among retirees.

If they voted it down, and another proposal were put forward, my role as an independent analyst would have been compromised. Some retirees could have viewed me as a rubber stamp for the city’s side. I could completely understand why some would vote it down.

The bankruptcy asked retirees to essentially give up their right to legal challenges down the line. People made individual sacrifices, forced or otherwise, for the city’s chance to move forward. The sacrifices were real.

How did the voter guide come about?

Managing editor Nancy Laughlin assigned the guide.

You did a web chat with retirees after the articles. What did that add to the impact of the series?

I often do web chats for some complex issues. We get a couple of experts as guests. It helps people get specific issues addressed and it can give us more tips on future stories.

What was the reader reaction after the series ran?

People thanked us by email and called on the phone. We sort of became another source in the community where they could call. I think people realized I would seek answers and get back to them.

How have you or the paper followed up since the vote was taken?

We wrote about retirees again when the bankruptcy was finalized at year end 2014. I wrote about clawback deadlines in late 2014 and early 2015. I also have tracked down some small questions that we did not write about involving the clawback.

I talk with retirees and attended a meeting this summer. I expect we will write more at some point, as well. The actual cuts to pension checks took place in March 2015.

What’s been your biggest satisfaction out of being a personal finance columnist?

I have been able to write about some major issues, such as the financial meltdown, fraud, and issues touching auto workers. It has been a great way to serve readers, especially when you are on the scene when financial challenges arise. It is particularly satisfying to help people understand complex financial issues and give them a chance of not getting exploited.

I also enjoy the opportunity to write and work on a wide variety of topics.