In 2018, the Mackinac Center reached more audiences than ever before. Our research and expertise was quoted in over a hundred different news outlets and our policy experts had a direct voice through op-eds, which appeared in many outlets across the nation and throughout Michigan.
Every victory, big or small, is important to our mission. But perhaps the most influential of last year was the U.S. Supreme Court decision known as Janus v. AFSCME. Not only was our amicus brief cited in the decision, but we also gained nationwide media attention through our expertise in labor issues and our new nationwide campaign, My Pay My Say.
In the wake of the decision, the country’s top newspapers turned to the Mackinac Center for commentary, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and Politico. Joseph Lehman, president of the Mackinac Center, and John LaPlante, senior fellow at the Center, co-authored an op-ed for USA Today, which was redistributed to newspapers across the country, including the Detroit Free Press.
In addition to the nationwide attention on labor, all of our other policy areas were featured in a variety of outlets. Throughout the year, our research on prevailing wage, licensing, wage laws, bail reform and more was mentioned in multiple editorials by The Detroit News.
Jason Hayes, our director of environmental policy, wrote in The Wall Street Journal about who’s really setting Michigan’s energy policy. Radio listeners across Michigan got to learn more about changes needed in criminal justice, thanks to Kahryn Riley, our director of criminal justice reform. People could also read about these reforms in newspapers across the state.
Education freedom in Michigan had a voice, thanks to Ben DeGrow, our director of education policy. Outside of the usual Michigan outlets, DeGrow spread the message of educational choice by being quoted in several education outlets, including Chalkbeat. Our fiscal policy staff remained a consistent source of information on issues such as taxes and corporate welfare. Bloomberg, Crain’s Detroit Business and The Guardian all featured our fiscal policy staff’s research in their 2018 publications.
Our experts were also featured weekly in one of the Beltway’s most well-read newspapers. Each week, we tackled a different topic from a free-market prospective and wrote about it in an op-ed for The Hill.
As we begin 2019, we look forward to all the new ways we can share our work.
