Michigan voters can be ‘in the room where it happens’ (remotely) at Mackinac Policy Conference

By Colleen O’Donnell

Michiganders – and anyone on the internet – can get a unique window on how “closed-door” politics operates and how statewide public policy gets made each year, when Detroit Public Television (DPTV) brings its production crew to Mackinac Island to livestream the annual Mackinac Policy Conference, Michigan’s largest and most important public policy event.

This year marked 10 years for DPTV’s coverage of Michigan’s biggest policy event, which through most of its 41-year history was traditionally limited to political insiders.

Michigan’s one-of-a-kind event for policy makers first ferried hundreds across the Straits of Mackinac in 1981 to descend upon Mackinac Island’s historic Grand Hotel for Detroit Regional Chamber’s keystone event.

Detroit Regional Chamber CEO Sandy Baruah opened this year’s conference, which returned to an in-person event for the first time since the pandemic began, with a nod to the significance of the role that DPTV plays in pulling back the veil on the activities on the island:

“There really is nothing like this in any other state.” Detroit Public Television CEO Rich Homberg

When Detroit Public Television, Detroit’s PBS station, first set out to offer coverage of the Mackinac Policy Conference (MPC) in 2011, the initial goal, according to DPTV’s CEO Rich Homberg (@RichHomberg), was to extend access to the conference sessions to additional staff from attending organizations – since the conference is expensive, and many organizations could only afford to send one or two people.

But what started as a way to extend the reach to other insiders, grew into an opportunity for ordinary citizens and voters to get a window into how policy is made, and what kinds of conversations happen in these closed-door sessions in this expensive hotel on a remote island at the top of “the mitten.”

Communications Director for Detroit Regional Chamber, Chris Moyer, shares the chamber’s motivations for wanting to share this information with the wider public:

In the decade since DPTV first put their production truck on a ferry to the island that bans motor vehicles, then on a horse-drawn carriage up the hill to the century-old Grand Hotel, the number of digital views of the livestreamed sessions has climbed from 1,300 views in 2011 to more than 34,000 in 2021. Another 17,000 households watched DPTV’s broadcast of #MPC21 highlights at the close of the conference, for a combined reach of nearly 52,000 views of MPC content in 2021.

Not a bad expansion of reach for a conference that accommodates just over 1,500 people in person each year (though the chamber deliberately scaled down in-person attendance for pandemic safety in 2021 to about half) – but still a tiny fraction of Michigan’s 8 million registered voters.

According to DPTV Senior Vice President of Strategy Georgeann Herbert, another one of the early goals of streaming the conference was offering news media access to the video footage. Outlets including WDIV channel 4 (local NBC affiliate), FOX 2, and Detroit Free Press have access to free use of the footage in their reporting on the conference, further extending the number of people reached.

Overall, the effort was not without its challenges. In addition to getting the television equipment and production truck up to the island, just keeping the cameras steady in a historic hotel, whose foundation is built on tree stumps and wiring a 130-year-old building for HD transmission were some of the early hurdles DPTV had to overcome.

One frequently mentioned benefit of attending MPC in person, which doesn’t translate across livestream, is the opportunity to get face time with key people and the deepening of relationships that occurs by attending and networking at the event.

“A five-minute conversation can happen impromptu on the porch, when otherwise it would take months to get a meeting with most of these people,” said DPTV One Detroit Managing Editor Christy McDonald (@ChristyTV). McDonald anchors DPTV’s media desk in the lobby of the Grand Hotel each year, conducting in-depth, exclusive interviews with featured speakers at the conference, which are also streamed on DPTV’s social media and website.

What happens at the Mackinac Policy Conference?

Understanding the Mackinac Policy Conference begins with taking a look at some of the sessions, which this year included topics such as “Racial Equity in the Workplace,” “What Michiganders Want: Investments in Children,” and “Economy, Growth and Sustainable Finance.” And there are press conferences, and major initiatives launched, announcements made, sometimes in grand style, as in 2019 when Governor Gretchen Whitmer, surrounded by Republican and Democratic state legislators signed the bipartisan no-fault insurance bill into law on the porch of the Grand Hotel.

But a lot of what most attendees say is the most important part of conference is what happens in between the sessions, casual conversations on the porch or at the refreshments table, deals made, connections created, relationships expanded.

In this video montage, I catch up with several attendees between sessions at the 2021 Mackinac Policy Conference, and ask them to weigh in on what the most pressing issues are currently facing Michigan’s workforce:

Despite the rise in digital views each year, there is still a lot of room for growth in reaching more of Michigan’s voting public with these substantive policy talks – and a lot of voters who think they don’t have access to politicians or the state’s top leaders, or insight into how policy is made. If only there were a way to get this information into their hands…

Detroit Public Television leaders responsible for creating the Mackinac Policy Conference streaming partnership with Detroit Regional Chamber share its genesis and how it has evolved:

Sessions from MPC21 are available to stream on Detroit Regional Chamber’s YouTube channel.