It seems that Michigan was an important state for the presidential campaign of 1984. Or at least it was for the Democratic Party, whose nominee Walter Mondale made an appearance on the University of Michigan campus. Saline Journal parent company D² Enterprises covered it for a news outlet in Detroit which subsequently distributed photographs provided to interested papers throughout the United States. [1]
Back then, journalism wasn’t open to just anyone. The Saline Reporter wouldn’t have attempted local coverage of Vice President Mondale, and few outside of the campus itself would have read anything the Michigan Daily would have had to say about it, good, bad, or indifferent. “The story” was whatever the official outlets who picked up our images chose to say it was when they ran their articles — a day or two later. [2]
If you read about it in The Ann Arbor News, The Detroit Free Press, or maybe even USA Today (which at the time had only launched a couple of years earlier), you could provide feedback by writing a “letter to the editor.” The targeted newspaper might even run it a few days to a week or more later. Your thoughts wouldn’t be included with the original piece, of course; rather, they’d be commingled with submissions by other people just like you, but could be tied to any of the stories the paper had run in any issue around the same time as the one to which you were responding.
Meanwhile, in Lodi Township, just a few months after Mr Mondale spoke at UofM, voters would have to travel out to the intersection of Zeeb and Pleasant Lake Roads to cast their ballots for president. Parking was wherever one could find it, often angled toward the ditch on either side of the busier roadway. The exercise of one’s franchise was a risky affair. [3]
All of that changed a great deal on July 27, 1986, when the “new” Lodi Township hall was opened. We took note of that in 2006 on its twentieth anniversary, then again ten years after that. Perhaps we were the only ones who marked the occasion.
Saline Journal didn’t photograph either candidate in the 2016 presidential election. That’s not to say that Michigan wasn’t an important state to that campaign, too; some would say it was one of the more pivotal to be colored on the Electoral College map. Would a stronger presence here by the nominee of the Democratic Party have made for a different occupant of The White House today? It didn’t for Walter Mondale thirty-two years prior. [4,5]
With primaries rapidly approaching once again here next month and pivotal races coming up for contests from governor to local District Court judge, an indisputable fact to keep in mind when reading any coverage — old media or new — is this. Coverage is often based on what is available to the reporting party. It’s also a fact that in order to be elected, a candidate must be seen. Now in our thirty-fourth year in journalism, that as much as anything else is the reason the D² Enterprises photograph above is here.
Within that, the audience is still responsible for sorting out what will become the history, both in real time and in the books. Vice President Mondale turned ninety this year and for many continues to be fondly remembered. But he never became President of the United States, historical image and original 1867 polling place notwithstanding. [6]
References
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- “Walter F Mondale, 42nd Vice President (1977-1981)” United States Senate.
- “Saline Reporter” (June 11, 1958 to April 3, 2014) CMU: Central Michigan University — Digital Michigan Newspapers.
- “The ‘New’ Lodi Township Hall Formally Celebrated Its Opening Twenty Years Ago Today” Dell Deaton (July 27, 2006) Saline Journal.
- “Trump flipped 12 counties to win Michigan” Chad Livengood, Michael Gerstein, and Joel Kurth (November 9, 2016) The Detroit News.
- “How Clinton lost Michigan — and blew the election” Edward-Isaac Dovere (December 14, 2016) Politico.
- “Mondale vs Reagan debate lessons” CNN (September 25, 2016) YouTube.
