as of in by to all a in Mayor Young charges that the media helped hurt Detroit's image MAYOR YOUNG, from Page 1A for helping to create it," Young said. "It's do-it-yourself, make your own headlines. ... I think that your paper has constructed a straw man and then knocked it down." Free Press Executive Editor David Lawrence Jr. re sponded Wednesday: "The mayor is entitled to a viewpoint, and I respect that. But it is unproductive, unfair, untrue and, frankly, sad for the mayor to blame the media for the image and the problems in our community. "What we all need to do, as citizens and as people who have a commitment to where we live, is to first acknowledge the problems; , CSV? Young then, together, we can work toward solutions." YOUNG OFFERED these examples of Free Press stories during the last year that he said helped create a distorted image of the city: A Feb. 26 article reporting that Detroit had the highest per capita homicide rate among the nation's 50 major cities in 1983. Although he did not challenge the accuracy of the story, Young said Wednesday, "I don't know of any paper anywhere in the country that trumpeted negative news about its own city in that manner." A Nov. 1 1 account of the shootings of 1 1 7 youths under 1 7 in Detroit this year, including capsule descriptions of each incident. "They didn't even do that in Atlanta when they murdered 30 kids," Young said. "But the Free Press did, in the City of Detroit." A series of stories in late September and early October detailing Detroit's crime problem and suggesting possible solutions. The Free Press "put a couple of reporters on it, who did a quick job three, four months became instant experts on every damn thing and came up with a whole bunch of solutions, none of which held water," Young said. Among the solutions offered in the series were more community involvement in fighting crime, more police officers on street patrols, more jail space for felons, stronger enforcement of gun laws and a more effective anti-drug campaign. At his crime summit Tuesday, Young proposed the recall and reassignment of more than 1,000 police officers, 1,500 to 2,000 new prison beds in Wayne County in the next six months, and tough measures to crack down on guns in schools. The newspaper's coverage of the violence and vandalism surrounding the Tigers' World Series victory and Devil's Night-Halloween activities. "It was our news media who led the nation in assessing (the Tigers celebration) as a near-riot," Young charged. "Similar reactions ... have taken place in cities like Philadelphia and Boston with no particular note from the press. "Then an expectation was built up in the minds of the public for negative events on Devil's Night. So Devil's Night came, and the wish became father to the thought." Young said local news media also were slow to report his administration's "verified" figures on the number of fire incidents on Devil's Night and Halloween. The only story that appeared in the Free Press about Devil's Night before Oct. 30 reported on a Young press conference at which he and city public safety officials outlined the measures they would take to combat juvenile violence and vandalism on Devil's Night and Halloween. The mayor's statistics on the fires were the subject of news stories in various local media, including a front-page story in the Free Press on Nov. 10 the day after the Mayor's Office released them. The mayor charged that the Free Press "has been in the forefront of those newspapers which have hyped the negative image of the City of Detroit I think (the image survey) was a hype, I think it was an unjustified hype, and it's wrong. I don't think it reflects reality. I think it reflects a perception of the city after ... steady drumfire and misrepresentation. "If our media persist in leading the assault on this city, we're going to be in trouble."
