PLYMOUTH, Mich.—Graham Media’s WDIV Local 4, NBC affiliate in Detroit has taken the unusual step of establishing what the station calls a "first-of-its-kind coffee shop and satellite newsroom" in downtown Plymouth, Mich.
The coffee shop/newsroom, which opens to the public on Wednesday, July 22, is designed to expand the station’s local news coverage into Plymouth and the surrounding Western Wayne County communities and to establish closer ties between its news operations and the communities it serves.
"Journalism only works if a community trusts you enough to hand you their stories," said Stephanie Slagle, vice president, chief revenue officer and general manager of WDIV Local 4. "Fourgrounds gives our reporters and anchors a place to earn that trust in person — to sit down with the people of Plymouth and the surrounding communities, hear what matters to them, and go tell those stories the way they deserve to be told."
In announcing the opening, the station noted that journalism, at its best, is a promise to a community — to show up for it, to advocate for it, and to tell its stories honestly and well. That promise is harder to keep from behind a camera and a desk alone.
The new satellite newsroom embedded into a neighborhood coffee shop will make it easier for reporters and anchors to sit down in local residents, listen to them, and carry their stories forward.
The real coffee shop is being done in partnership with Great Lakes Coffee, a Detroit-based roaster.
Fourgrounds is “a model few, if any, local TV newsrooms in the country have tried: not a pop-up, not a one-time event, but a permanent space where journalism and daily life share the same room,” the station reported in announcing the opening. “Bring us the story you think Southeast Michigan needs to hear. Tell us who in your neighborhood deserves recognition, what issue deserves a spotlight, what's changing on your block that the rest of the region should know about. That's the job — and now there's a table for it.”
The grand opening will take place on Wednesday, July 22 at Fourgrounds, 995 W. Ann Arbor Trail, Plymouth, Michigan. Foreground’s hours are: M-Sa 7am-5pm, Su 9am-5pm.
