Malcolm W. Bingay
Malcolm W. Bingay was a prominent Canadian-American journalist, born on December 16, 1884, in Sandwich, Ontario, and raised in Detroit, Michigan. His tumultuous educational background included being expelled from high school, which led him to pursue a career in journalism rather than formal education. Bingay began his professional journey at the Detroit News, where he quickly rose through the ranks to become the sports editor, known for his engaging coverage of the Detroit Tigers and legendary player Ty Cobb. His vivid writing style and ability to dramatize sporting events earned him a significant readership.
After a stint as managing editor, his career took a turn due to personal challenges, leading him to the Detroit Free Press, where he became a feature columnist and editorial director. Bingay's notable column, "Good Morning," addressed various topics with a forthright and often cantankerous tone, reflecting his conservative views, particularly during the Roosevelt administration. He also created a popular comic sports persona, Iffy the Dopester. Bingay's journalistic legacy includes compassionate reports on the conditions of Nazi labor camps after World War II and a book celebrating Detroit's industrial and sports heritage. He continued writing until his death on August 21, 1953, leaving a lasting impact on both sports and political journalism.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Malcolm W. Bingay
Journalist
- Born: December 16, 1884
- Birthplace: Sandwich, Ontario, Canada
- Died: August 21, 1953
Biography
Malcolm Wallace Bingay, was born on December 16, 1884, in Sandwich, Ontario, Canada, and raised in Detroit, Michigan, where his parents moved in 1887. Indifferent to the classroom and resentful of the arbitrary nature of teachers’ authority, Bingay struggled in school and eventually was expelled from high school for belligerent behavior. He later attempted to take night classes and enrolled briefly in the adult education program at the University of Michigan, but he never completed a high school or college degree.
After several dead-end jobs, he worked as a printer’s devil at a small weekly newspaper, Michigan Farmer. Journalism appealed to his love of bluntness. At seventeen, he accepted a lower-echelon office position with the Detroit News, then Michigan’s largest daily newspaper, and within three years was a reporter. By twenty-one, he was sports editor and was building a reputation for his columns, cranking out as many as four a day. He covered with particular relish the world champion Detroit Tigers and the legendary Ty Cobb. With vivid details and a natural sense for setting scene and character, Bingay captured athletic events that recast the athletes as larger-than-life figures and the games themselves into mythic contests. Bingay’s writing found an immense readership and he was promoted to managing editor. However, in 1928 his hard drinking and often unruly behavior cost him that position.
After a brief posting as a foreign correspondent in London, Bingay returned to Detroit, resigned from the Detroit News, and in late 1930 began a nearly twenty-year association with the rival Detroit Free Press, initially as a feature columnist but eventually as editorial director. During much of that time, Bingay wrote a landmark column, “Good Morning,” in which he tackled a range of topics, from local and national politics to sports, always featuring his trademark style: forthright, cantankerous, often crude, uncompromising, and feisty. During the height of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s initiatives to combat the Depression, Bingay was known for bedeviling the Roosevelt administration with his conservative vision. To separate politics from sports, Bingay created the persona of a comic sports columnist, Iffy the Dopester, in 1934. Iffy’s column, initially not credited to Bingay, proved wildly popular and ran for more than a dozen years, a time that coincided with some of the bleakest years in Detroit baseball history.
After World War II, Bingay was among the American journalists invited by Dwight Eisenhower to inspect the ghastly conditions of the Nazi labor camps, and Bingay’s reports are among the most compassionate and vivid accounts of these horrific conditions. An enthusiastic promoter of Detroit, Bingay wrote a book about the city, Detroit Is My Own Home Town, in which he praises the city’s industrial past and its legendary sports teams. He continued writing his column until he collapsed from a cerebral hemorrhage while at his typewriter and died on August 21, 1953. Bingay demonstrated the ability of both sports and political journalism in its mid-twentieth century heyday to spark debate, incite argument, and provoke public response.