Malcolm Bingay tried as early as 1904, when he was only nineteen years old, to become a sportswriter when he lobbied unsuccessfully to become the Ann Arbor correspondent for the Detroit News. His goal was to cover the celebrated "point-a-minute" football teams at the University of Michigan and get a college degree. When the same newspaper hired him as a sports editor the same year, however, football was the one sport he did not get a chance to cover in the job.

Bingay devoted his professional career as a newspaper editor and reporter to other pursuits, as well. In his early days he covered the Detroit waterfront, its hotels, and its labor unions. As managing editor of the Detroit News Bingay cultivated friendships with Henry Ford and other titans of the automobile industry and became involved in state politics; but, above all, he promoted Detroit.

Bingay witnessed the profession...