If you follow the news in Michigan, you know that there are plenty of issues that generate strong opinions. But it often feels like the people with those strong opinions aren't listening to one another.
With that in mind, a new show is set to make its debut here on Michigan Public Thursday night. It's called Michigan, We Need to Talk, and the host is someone familiar to many Michigan Public listeners: award-winning journalist and broadcaster Stephen Henderson.
Henderson spoke with Michigan Public Morning Edition host Doug Tribou about the new program.
Michigan, We Need to Talk
Hosted by Stephen Henderson
Thursdays at 8:00pm on Michigan Public
Doug Tribou: Many of our listeners, especially in southeast Michigan, know your radio work from your time at public radio station WDET in Detroit, where you hosted programs for a decade. Others will know you from your writing at The Detroit Free Press, where you won a Pulitzer Prize. And you're the founder of the nonprofit newsroom Bridge Detroit. But for people just getting to know you right now, tell us a little bit more about yourself and how you came to this project.
Stephen Henderson: Well, as you point out, I've been a journalist here in Michigan for a long time now. I was born here in Detroit, but traveled around quite a bit, working in other markets for many years. I came home to Michigan in 2007. And so, next year I will have been home for 20 years. And in that 20 years, I've really seen the civic space around discussion of our problems just deteriorate. It really has become blood sport in many ways.
And I have been thinking for a long time that radio is a great medium really to give people the opportunity to think about things together, to get more information about things, and then actually have conversations that are not about just bludgeoning the other side.
DT: So what can people expect when they tune in Thursday nights at 8:00?
SH: I keep talking about the three kinds of ingredients. One is information you're going to hear... really deep and good reporting about the issues that we decide we're going to talk about that week. I've been a journalist my entire adult life. That's where I start everything is with the reporting.
Then we're going to bring some context into it. We're going to have some voices that you might consider experts who can help us think about these issues.
And then — this is the really important part — we are going to open the phones. We're going to have people call in and talk to us about what they've heard, what they've thought, what they know about all of these issues, and talk with other Michiganders about it.
DT: As we mentioned, the name of the show is Michigan, We Need to Talk. What are some of the things that we here in Michigan need to talk about? And keep in mind, Stephen, we only have a few minutes for this conversation. [Laughs]
SH: [Laughs] I was going to say, how long do you have?
So we're going to begin our show in a city called Dowagiac in Southwest Michigan. That's a community that is struggling with an issue that I think lots of people here in the state of Michigan are thinking and struggling over, and that's AI data centers. They have one there and in a neighborhood. So we put it in the context of Michigan and the rest of the state.
Of course, politics. Right now, we're in a midterm political season that is already a barn burner. What we want to do, again, is bring some real reporting and context to some of the issues that are coming up there.
There's no shortage of things that we will get to, and we want listeners to be part of that process. We're building an online community at miweneedtotalk.org. They can subscribe to a newsletter where they will get a lot more than what we put out on the show.
This week, in fact, you can go to that website, hit [the button] "Join the Conversation," and you will get a newsletter that has a little bit of a preview of Thursday's show. We're going to let listeners who subscribe listen first and then kind of think about what they would maybe say about it and then call in or email during the show.
So we're cooking with gas now on ideas and they'll hear them beginning Thursday night.
DT: Well, Stephen, thanks a lot. Good luck with the show. I'm really looking forward to hearing it.
SH: Yeah, it's going to be fun to be here at Michigan Public.
Editor's note: Some quotes in this article have been lightly edited for length and clarity. You can play the audio of the full conversation near the top of this page.
