Inducted 2025
Alex Cruden
copy chief, Detroit Free Press
Alex Cruden is perhaps the most influential Michigan journalist whose name rarely appeared in print. In more than 30 years at the Detroit Free Press, he had a hand in all of the newspaper’s most significant journalism, while protecting the newsroom’s journalistic integrity, accuracy and style.
Equally important was his role in training and mentoring thousands of journalists. Alex taught copy editors skills and finesse. He taught the importance of asking hard questions with the confidence to go toe-to-toe with others in the newsroom.
Alex grew up in southern Florida and recalls reading comics and sports pages in the Miami Herald at age 5. By age 8, he graduated to columns by James S. Knight, head of the Knight newspaper chain and Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial writer. In his junior year at Hamilton College, Alex became a part-time copy editor at the Utica Daily Press. He stayed on full time for two years upon graduation.
After three years as a copy editor for the Providence Journal, Alex came to the Free Press in 1973. He stayed until 2008 as a copy editor, assistant city editor, national and foreign editor, news editor and chief of the copy desks.
Alex put readers at the front of everything he did and led his team to do so. In his legendary “Inside Readers’ Heads” sessions, he gathered people and asked for their candid opinions of headlines.
Alex’s lifelong commitment to nurturing journalistic talent has been a consistent thread throughout his career and retirement. A founding member of the American Copy Editors Society, Alex served for 10 years as vice president and scholarship administrator of the ACES Education Fund, in support of aspiring young journalists.
He led more than 170 workshops and seminars, coached fifth graders for eight years and was an adjunct instructor at Wayne State University.