By Zachary Gorchow
President of Michigan Operations
Posted: September 27, 2021 10:56 AM

On September 25, 1961, a news organization with an unusual name published its first edition in Michigan.

The Gongwer News Service, Inc., as it was known then, had embarked on its first expansion beyond the borders of Ohio, where it began in Columbus in 1906, founded by its namesake, Charles S. Gongwer.

Printed on 8½ by 11 goldenrod paper, stapled in the upper left corner, the logo in blue, the first edition was not really a news report so much as an affirmation of what prompted the expansion to Lansing. It was news that the Board of State Canvassers had certified the election of the delegates to the 1961-62 Michigan Constitutional Convention and a list of all those delegates.

With that, an experiment was born.

The Michigan Report initially relied on delivery to a close circle of interested parties near the Capitol and the U.S. mail, the internet still more than 30 years away. From A.B. Dick copiers to ditto machines to hulking Xerox copiers, paper would be the lifeblood of the company an Associated Press reporter would lovingly refer to as "an obscure mail-order newsletter" for the first half of its existence in Michigan.

Some 60 years later, Gongwer News Service is now a household name in Michigan government and politics, using electronic platforms that deliver its products more quickly and more widely than the founders of the company could have dreamed at the time. It has transformed from a daily digest of relatively short stories and logs of legislative activities to publishing anywhere from 10 to 25 stories a day, with breaking news posted any time on any date, and an advanced tracking service allowing its subscribers to track bills, administrative rules, news coverage by topic and boards and commissions.

When Gongwer opened its offices in the Michigan National Tower in 1961, the Gongwer family's 55-year ownership history was on the verge of ending. Mr. Gongwer's son, Burr Franklin Gongwer, who inherited ownership of the company in 1935, died in February 1961 after a long illness. His wife, Dorothy Morris Gongwer, had served as the company's president for some time.

By the end of 1961, William F. Baird, a longtime leader in the Gongwer Ohio office and an enthusiast about expanding to other states, would purchase the company from Ms. Gongwer (her name, D.M. Gongwer, last appeared in the masthead of the Michigan Report in the spring of 1962) and helm it as owner until his death in late 1992.

The Gongwer name, however, would endure.

In 1961, Gongwer's work in Michigan was limited to the Constitutional Convention.

That spring, Michigan voters had narrowly approved the calling of a Constitutional Convention, attracting the interest of Gongwer leadership about potentially expanding northward.

With the convention moving toward making the Legislature full time, the company elected to broaden its commitment to continuous, complete, daily coverage of all of state government starting in January 1962.

In the early years, the company's coverage could be cheeky and the writing style even a bit eye-rolling. Suggestions that legislative debates neared "physical violence" were not uncommon. Sarcastic headlines occasionally appeared. Perhaps most surprising given the company's longtime reputation for serious news coverage is that in the early years, one of the names in the masthead was "P.D. Quick" – and the consensus among those who would later join the company and helm it for decades is that was a made up name.

About the initials – D.M. Gongwer, for example – for most of Gongwer's first 50 years, staff were identified in the masthead using initials for their first and middle names, presumably as a space saving technique. Mr. Baird was W.F. Baird, for example. This ended sometime in the 2000s after the company moved away from paper, space in the masthead no longer a concern.

In the late 1960s, the company took a stab at political cartoons. Drawn by one of the first managers of the Michigan office, Jack Burdock, these are the subject of company lore. Some officials got less than flattering renditions.

In fact, for most of the 1960s, Gongwer's reports looked much different than the format that would come in the 1970s. The reports were printed on legal size paper. Legislative activity logs were blended into the news stories, as opposed to the separation of those products that began in the 1970s.

Two early hires would move Gongwer's Michigan presence from experimental and uncertain in the 1960s to an enduring part of life in and around the Capitol. And it was a short-lived attempt at expansion to Wisconsin that would help enable it.

In 1972, Gongwer Michigan Editor Dick Wheeler agreed to manage a new Gongwer operation in Madison, Wisconsin. That opened up the management of the Michigan office. Not long after arriving in Wisconsin, the Gongwer experiment in that state's capital ended and Mr. Wheeler founded The Wheeler Report, which continues today, 10 years after his death.

Alan Miller, then a Gongwer staff writer in Columbus, was named manager of the Michigan office by Mr. Baird and moved to the Lansing region. Larry Lee, a part-timer who grew up on a dairy farm in Marion, Michigan, was hired by Mr. Wheeler in 1970 and quickly promoted to full-time staff writer, was named editor.

For 20 years, Mr. Miller and Mr. Lee would run the Michigan operation and build the foundation, both in its subscriber base and its reputation for serious, trustworthy, independent reporting. Mr. Miller led the business side with a mission to grow the company's subscriber base and Mr. Lee helmed the news side. In 1992, following Mr. Baird's death, Mr. Miller, Mr. Lee and the late Robert Drumheller would become the company's owners. Mr. Miller would return to Columbus as the new company president. Mr. Lee would take on both the business and news sides in Michigan as one of two vice presidents (Mr. Drumheller, in Ohio, the other).

In 1993, the company would become an early adopter of what was then the little-known idea of having a website. A web hosting service approached Gongwer about going online, helping develop something that would attract eyeballs with scrolling headlines. That step is why the company's online archives date to September 1993.

The company made a critical decision. Unlike other news outlets that elected to make their initial websites free and open to the public, Gongwer's subscription-based model would carry over to its Internet presence.

For about the first 10 years of its existence online, the Gongwer website, with a few redesigns, would essentially mimic the company's paper product. All stories would be posted and readable in one click, with publication taking place in the evening. By 2002, the company had completely converted to electronic publication and delivery.

In 1999, there was a news story that prompted the Michigan office's leaders, Mr. Lee and John Lindstrom, who would soon become editor and later publisher in the Michigan office, to determine it merited immediately delivery. Then-Secretary of State Candice Miller, expected to challenge then-U.S. Rep. David Bonior for reelection, decided against running. The story was distributed immediately via email, the start of a gradual movement toward more immediately posting news that is familiar to today's subscribers.

A major tech-side innovation took place in 2003, when the company introduced as part of its website a database of all legislation, creating the platform that would allow the development of the advanced bill tracking system offered today. That transition also set the stage for countless other service enhancements, including interactive schedules, government directories and much more.

Today, the full-time staff of the Gongwer Michigan office numbers seven: Executive Editor and Publisher Zach Gorchow, Managing Editor Alethia Kasben, Chief Information Officer Chris Klaver, Staff Writers Jordyn Hermani, Nick Smith and Ben Solis and Legislative/Digital Specialist Miranda Hutchings.

Sixty years after the company's namesake founders took a chance on Michigan, the company remains ever committed to its original mission of providing "information pertinent to legislative and state department activities" and looks forward to continuing to serve its subscribers with trustworthy news and information and new and innovative services.