Michael A. Bartell

By Mark Zaborney
Blade Staff Writer


Michael A. Bartell, a veteran Blade reporter and editor and University of Toledo journalism instructor, who spurred colleagues and students to accurate, thorough newswriting, died Friday in ProMedica Ebeid Hospice Residence, Sylvania. He was 70.

He'd suffered a catastrophic stroke earlier in the week, said Ereck Wheeler, his life partner. Mr. Bartell of South Toledo learned in June that he had small cell lung cancer and began treatment afterward.

He retired in 2013 from UT, where he started teaching in 1981. He was recognized in 2012 with a Student Impact Award for his influence on students.

"That award came straight from my students. That really meant a lot to me," Mr. Bartell said in 2014 for an article in the UT Alumni eMagazine.

He retired from The Blade after 35 years at the end of 2008 as night city editor, a post he held in the early 1980s and to which he returned in 1992, as the newspaper switched from afternoon to morning weekday delivery.

"Mike was a stickler on accuracy, newspaper style, grammar and punctuation, but he worked hard to make Blade stories better," said Kurt Franck, executive editor and president of The Blade, who worked as managing editor with Mr. Bartell for eight years.

"Mike could be crotchety and demanding when dealing with reporters, but he always cared about the readers first," Mr. Franck said.

Mike Jones, a retired co-worker, said the phrase, "without fear or favor," came to mind.

"He wanted only facts, and how they might affect others favorably or unfavorably didn't matter," Mr. Jones said. "We were to get facts and put those facts out.

"He knew the players, and if a fact was elusive, he knew the person to call, how to get them and wiggle out that last fact needed to complete a story," Mr. Jones said.

Mr. Bartell showed that aptitude as a reporter as well.

"You could assign virtually anything to him, and he would go get it," said Tom Dawson, a retired executive of what is now Buckeye Broadband, who went to the cable system after working for The Blade. He was night city editor when Mr. Bartell worked for him.

Mr. Bartell more than covered the now-fabled Blizzard of '78. He was among the few staff members with a four-wheel drive vehicle and so could offer a first-hand account of conditions - and transport colleagues to work and home.

"Mike was running his Bartell taxi service," Mr. Dawson recalled.

He also was the first reporter to view the region from aboard an Ohio Army National Guard helicopter.

"From the air, northwest Ohio was an area of splendid desolation," Mr. Bartell wrote in 1999 for a retrospective on major 20th Century news stories. "There was the stark beauty of pure white snow, dotted with farm buildings, colorful rooftops, gray concrete grain silos, and trees bare of leaves."

Mr. Bartell covered education as the Toledo Public Schools endured money woes, the departure of a superintendent, and a strike. He was among Blade reporters at the 1980 Republican National Convention in Detroit and then assigned to Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign. He would speak of Nancy Reagan's nightly ritual - walking down the aisle of the plane, dispensing chocolates to reporters who that day hadn't asked her husband questions she deemed out of line, Mr. Wheeler said.

For much of the 1980s, he covered the police beat, working from an office in the Safety Building - police headquarters.

"He could be a friend, yet he was a professional," said Tom Ross, a retired Toledo police detective who is a cold-case investigator for the Lucas County prosecutor's office. "He knew how to mesh the friendship and the professionalism. He knew if you were holding something back, and he would pester you and pester you."

He might not get much on unsolved cases, but "if it was solved, we gave Mike everything," Mr. Ross said. "Mike didn't get excited. He could get angry quick, but he could get unangry just as quick."

Mr. Bartell's interest in space flight dated to his youth. The Blade sent him to Florida to cover several Space Shuttle missions, particularly of the 1995 all-Ohio crew aboard Discovery, helmed by Bryan native Tom Henricks.

"I've always told people that I was born about 30 years too late," Mr. Bartell told the UT alumni emagazine. "I would have rather covered the early days of the space program than the later years, but at least I got to cover the space program."

He was already retired from The Blade when he was contacted by astronaut Don Thomas, who had been on that Discovery mission. Mr. Thomas sought help with a first-hand account of the all-Ohio mission.

Published in 2014 after several years of collaborating was the book, Orbit Of Discovery: The All-Ohio Space Shuttle Mission, by Don Thomas, with Mike Bartell. U.S. Sen. John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, wrote the foreward, and U.S. Sen. George Voinovich, who was governor during the Discovery mission, wrote the introduction.

At UT, Mr. Bartell in class "was able to bring real life experiences because of his position at The Blade to the classroom," said Richard Knecht, a professor emeritus of communication and a former department chairman. "He showed them the reality of it all.''

Danielle Gamble, a former student, said: "He was a tour de force of a professor and of a journalist.

"When you think of a guy you want writing your news and working in your newsroom and serving your community, he was that guy," said Ms. Gamble, a former web editor at The Blade. She thought she'd be a music teacher, but Mr. Bartell encouraged her interest in journalism. "He believed in me."

He was born July 29, 1951, to Sylvia and Frank Bartell and grew up in South Toledo. His father was a reporter before becoming partner in a leading Toledo public relations firm.

Mr. Bartell was a graduate of St. John's Jesuit High School and UT, where he was in the ROTC. Afterward, he was commissioned as an Army officer. While stationed in Germany, he was an aide to a general.

Surviving are his life partner, Ereck Wheeler, and brother, Frank J. "Jack" Bartell III.

Services will begin at noon Saturday in W.K. Sujkowski & Son Funeral Home, with visitation after 11 a.m.

Tributes are suggested to St. John's Jesuit High School.