Free Press biz reporter Gallagher is departing

Business reporter John Gallagher, who has been at the Detroit Free Press for 32 years, is leaving the paper, reports Kurt Nagl of Crain’s Detroit Business.

Nagl reports, “Gallagher, who has held the longest tenure of the bunch with 32 years at the daily, will leave Dec. 20. He said his exit coincides with the end of his third term as president of the Newspaper Guild of Detroit, which represents around 200 employees at the Free Press, The Detroit News and a handful of other local papers.

“‘It just seemed like a good time to move on,’ Gallagher told Crain’s. ‘Journalism has suffered a great deal. When I came to the paper, we had more than 300 people in the newsroom and now we’re probably 100 or something. It’s a real loss not only for the journalists, but for the communities. I know the Free Press and The News and all the others are working really hard to try to solve that problem.’

“Word of potential buyouts at the Free Press surfaced last month. At that time, The Detroit News Editor and Publisher Gary Miles also sent a memo to newsroom staff offering the prospect of a voluntary buyout.”

Read more here. His book “Reimagining Detroit: Opportunities for Redefining an American City” was named by the Huffington Post as among the best social and political books of 2010. His most recent book is “Yamasaki in Detroit: A Search for Serenity,” a biography of architect Minoru Yamasaki.

Gallagher was born in New York City and joined the Free Press in 1987 to cover urban and economic redevelopment efforts in Detroit and Michigan, a post which he still holds. He is a 2017 inductee into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame.