He works for Fox 2, Detroit’s brashest TV news operation.

“live shot” to talk about an event that happened hours earlier.

On camera he wears sun glasses and talks with a swagger, referring to the mayor as “Dave” and the county executive as “Bob.” He does not stand in front of darkened buildings for a 10:00 p.m. He stares into the camera and makes funny faces. He does not comb his hair every day and almost never dresses up. He has thrown out the rules of how to be a TV reporter. His new local stardom is the result of many things. A think tank at Harvard recommends students read his newspaper reporting a reviewer of his book on the American male, 'US Guys,' saying he made the story too much about himself, called LeDuff “an erection in print.” His career has been characterized by pushing limits, winning prizes and receiving praise but also snide criticism and a couple of questions about his ethics. Among American journalists, LeDuff was one of the nation’s best known print reporters over the past 15 years, though he remained mostly unknown to metro Detroiters. Viewers have no reason to know LeDuff’s origins, but he is a local boy who made good, a scrawny nose guard on the football team at Livonia Churchill High School who became a star at the New York Times. He has become a sort of 21st-Century Bill Bonds, a popular yet polarizing personality whose frenetic, news-breaking television shtick has become the source of admiration, debate and, at times, scorn. He tells LeDuff: “My parents were in town when Ficano called you a ‘xenophobe.’ My dad thought you were amazing.”ĬHARLIE LEDUFF says he is just a reporter, but since he returned to his hometown and joined Fox 2 in 2010 after two years at the Detroit News, he has crossed over into the realm of Detroit TV star.

Tom Wait, a reporter from the competition, WXYZ-TV, is also on a story at city hall. LeDuff points at her and shouts: “That’s the hardest working lady in city government right there.” The women laugh. Jefferson and give LeDuff thumbs-up signs. “You’re beautiful,” he tells her in a tender voice. “I wanted to meet you,” she tells LeDuff.

“You are the man, Duff, you are the man.”Īn attractive young woman appears. Charlie LeDuff is walking through downtown Detroit, working on a story, running into “real people,” as media executives who never leave the office call readers and viewers.Ī construction worker from Taylor named Nick Danias walks up.

The americans charlie leduff