By DAN HOPPEN
J Alumni News staff
Randy Essex (right) and son Dustin
At the Detroit Free Press, Randy Essex still gets as much of a kick out of journalism as he did nearly 30 years ago as editor of the Daily Nebraskan.
Essex, a J school graduate, is now the deputy managing editor for business and civic affairs at the Detroit Free Press, a major metropolitan newspaper that has found novel ways to adjust to both the national and local business climates.
Along the path from college student to respected Detroit editor, Essex’s flexibility has been a key to his success.
Essex said much of that success can be attributed to principles he learned at the J school.
Good preparation made for a good start
“It prepared me to be ready to be in a newsroom. I learned the practical tasks and skills that I needed to succeed,” Essex said. “It really also emphasized the fundamental skills: the attention to detail, the attention to style and fundamentals that have helped me succeed.”
Essex’s career path didn’t begin as he expected it to. During his 1979 internship with the Omaha World-Herald, he was told he had a bright future in copy editing.
“I had expected to be a reporter,” Essex said. “But the World-Herald internships had always been half editing, half reporting. And they told me, ‘You’re a fine reporter, but you’re a really good copy editor.’”
Essex used the experience to get a job as a copy editor in Abilene, Texas. Within a few months, he was choosing stories for and laying out the front page. After a year and a half, Essex returned to Lincoln and finished his last few credit hours to earn his degree.
Willingness to change brings new opportunities
He then spent five years at the newspaper in Boise, Idaho. Essex said his willingness to branch out created new opportunities.
“I volunteered and made myself available and became the Sunday editor in Boise,” Essex said. “I was involved in the discussions with the senior managers about what was going to go in the signature paper of the week, and I was still in my 20s when I was doing that, so that was kind of a thrill. That was all the result of just being flexible, being eager to do other stuff, of writing even though I was an editor — I’d do whatever.”
In 1988, Essex moved to Iowa to work for The Des Moines Register and immediately loved the newsroom’s atmosphere.
“It was the newspaper I’d always wanted to work at, even if I didn’t know it,” Essex said. “I got in that newsroom, and people were talking about word usage and ethics and what makes a good story. The reporters could write stuff that would make you cry.”
Essex became the night city editor within six months and eventually was promoted to assistant managing editor, overseeing, among other things, Iowa Caucus coverage. Then, in 2006, Paul Anger, the top editor at the Free Press who had worked with Essex in Des Moines, convinced Essex to come to Detroit. He began as the business editor and was recently promoted to deputy managing editor.
Essex and Detroit: meant to be
“It’s kind of a marriage made in heaven because Detroit is one of the best news towns in the world, and Randy Essex is one of the best newspaper people that I know,” said Anger, who is now editor and publisher of the paper. “So getting Randy to Detroit was something that was really exciting, and it has worked out really well.”
Now Essex’s job includes planning, supervising editors and reporters, completing job evaluations and overseeing a travel budget.
“I would also say it’s my job to stand up for my writers, to try to get them the best play and the best opportunities,” Essex said. “We don’t have to be complete revenue vacuums. We can do some things that don’t violate anyone’s journalistic principles and contribute to the bottom line.”
In March, Essex also became a part of a bold experiment at the Free Press. In an effort to save money, the paper began delivering to homes just three days per week, as opposed to the daily distribution used by most newspapers. The newspaper is still available at newsstands and online the remainder of the week.
“We were just bleeding money,” Essex said. “As bad as the economy is in other places, it’s worse here in Detroit. The auto industry has touched families and neighbors, and it’s impossible not to be affected by the dramatic demise of one of the nation’s largest industries and largest employers.”
Free Press experiment seems to be working
Despite the change, the Free Press has been able to keep most of its home-delivery customers and has avoided making as many staff cuts as some other major newspapers.
“It wasn’t a silver bullet that made everything just fine, but we’d be in a lot of trouble if we hadn’t done that,” Essex said.
The change has affected Essex’s daily work. The Free Press now has less print space and is more focused on getting news on the Internet.
“Overall, we think more about how we can be creative using the Internet to get a complete report,” Essex said. “We’re on more like a broadcast cycle. We put stories on the Internet all through the day.”
Once again, flexibility and a willingness to accept new opportunities have served Essex well.
Emeritus J school professor Jack Botts recalled the promise that Essex showed, even when he was a student in Botts’ editing class.
“Randy had all the requirements for turning out successfully in whatever he did,” Botts said.
Despite all the success, Essex said his work is never done. To him, each day offers another opportunity to top his previous accomplishments.
“That’s one of the great things about this. I never feel like my best work is behind me,” Essex said. “I think that there’s going to be some fabulous story, and we’re going to do a great job with it and it’ll be as good as anything I’ve ever been involved with.”
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