Thirty years in Detroit newsrooms, and I still read the footnotes

I’m Verna. I started on the city desk of a Detroit daily in 1996 and spent most of three decades following contracts, housing money and the people who sign for both.

Paper Trail began in 2025 as a letter to a few colleagues. It is still free, still written on Tuesday night, and still one long read plus a note on how to ask for the records behind it.