Detour Detroit is your guide to navigating the ever-changing Motor City. Our mission is to publish equitable journalism by and for Detroiters. We give you the context to understand local issues beyond the daily news cycle, while building community through meaningful engagement.
Detour Media LLC. is an independent local journalism organization and creative agency founded by Kate Abbey-Lambertz and Ashley Woods Branch in 2018. We are a member of the Information Accelerator class of 2018. Our investor is Lessin Media Group in Silicon Valley, which owns a five percent stake in Detour Media, LLC. Detour Media is the publisher of Detour Detroit, The Blend and the Get Busy newsletters.
Learn more about Detour’s staff, contributors and editorial partners here.
Detour Media focuses relentlessly on delivering quality information and experiences that our members value, with the ultimate goal of making our community more aware and connected.
We strive to produce journalism that is correct, fair, transparent and properly sourced. Detour will properly label any errors of fact and clearly state any corrections to our readers.
We aren’t unbiased and we won’t pretend to be. We’ve lived in Detroit forever and anyway we think that’s bullshit. Even if we have a point of view, we promise to make our reporting as factual and honest as possible, and to seek diverse opinions to truthfully reflect our community.
We treat our members, users and our greater community with fairness, honesty and respect.
We welcome debate, perspectives and opinions from all sides of the political spectrum so long as they don’t denigrate others and are conveyed with respect.
Consumer interaction and engagement is central to the journalism we do. We embrace criticism and feedback from our members as opportunities to help us grow.
We subscribe to standards of editorial independence adopted by the Institute for Nonprofit News:
Our organization retains full authority over editorial content to protect the best journalistic and business interests of our organization. We maintain a firewall between news coverage decisions and sources of all revenue. Acceptance of financial support does not constitute implied or actual endorsement of donors or their products, services or opinions.
We accept gifts, grants and sponsorships from individuals and organizations for the general support of our activities, but our news judgments are made independently and not on the basis of donor support. Our organization may consider donations to support the coverage of particular topics, but our organization maintains editorial control of the coverage. We will cede no right of review or influence of editorial content, nor of unauthorized distribution of editorial content. Our organization will make public all donors who give a total of $5,000 or more per year.
Detour Media LLC has a fiscal sponsor relationship with TechTown Inc., a nonprofit entrepreneurial hub located in Detroit. We are editorially independent from TechTown. You can find TechTown’s 990 here and more information on TechTown at Guidestar.
Detour is also a reader-powered news organization. We receive funding from membership dollars. We do not accept anonymous donations and do not currently accept individual donations outside of our membership program.
Detour Media LLC discloses the following major donors who have contributed more than $5,000 in annual grants since our inception in 2018.
Detroit Equity Action Lab at Wayne State University
Solutions Journalism Network
Institute for Nonprofit News
Facebook Community Network, through a partnership with the Lenfest Foundation
U.S. Small Business Administration
Google News Innovation Challenge
Community Foundation of Southeast Michigan
TechTown, Inc.
Emma Bowen Foundation
The Information Accelerator /Lessin Media Group
We are committed to transparency in every aspect of funding our organization.
Accepting financial support does not mean we endorse donors or their products, services or opinions. We accept gifts, grants and sponsorships from individuals, organizations and foundations to help with our general operations, coverage of specific topics and special projects. We may receive funds from standard government programs offered to nonprofits or similar businesses.
Our news judgments are made independently – not based on or influenced by donors or any revenue source. We do not give supporters the rights to assign, review or edit content.
We make public all revenue sources and donors who give $5,000 or more per year. In accordance with best practices for journalism entities, we avoid accepting charitable donations from anonymous sources, government entities, political parties, elected officials or candidates seeking public office. We will not accept donations from sources who present a conflict of interest with our work or compromise our independence.
Detour Media LLC may partner with brands, companies, agencies or other organizations to provide content, marketing, promotions or events. We will clearly identify any sponsored, advertorial or marketing posts that appear in our newsletter, site or social channels. No marketing, advertising or sponsorship deal will influence our editorial coverage, independence or integrity. That’s a promise. Learn more about our sponsorship opportunities here.
Detour Media LLC acts as a digital strategy consultant and newsletter publishing partner for local journalism newsrooms and brands. We will never allow publishing partners to influence our editorial independence and journalism.
Our relationships with readers matters to us. We will never sell, trade, rent or give away your email to a third-party company. Review our privacy policy here.
For questions about sponsorship opportunities, partnerships and consultancy work, contact Ashley at ashley@detourdetroiter.com. Editorial questions and freelancing inquiries can be directed to Kate at kate@detourdetroiter.com.
