ABOUT US
ABOUT US
What is RAW Detroit?
RAW Detroit is a hyperlocal media platform covering Detroit: the food, the events, the businesses, and the people shaping the city. We report on what is actually happening in Detroit and the surrounding metro area, from new restaurant openings and neighborhood development to free things to do on a weekend. No syndicated filler, no suburb-first coverage. Detroit on its own terms.
Our Journey
RAW Detroit started in 2015, before it was a website. Founder Shawn Mangenje, a photographer who had just moved to Detroit from the UK, began hosting workshops and photo walks for the city’s creatives. A community grew around those walks, shooting a city that outside media mostly showed one way. The mission that came out of them still drives everything we publish: show Detroit in its real light.
Today that community has become a media platform, run by Shawn and co-founder Paige Pope. We publish reported articles and city guides, and our social channels reach metro Detroiters every day. This site is the next chapter: a place to go deeper on Detroit’s story than a feed allows.
The People Behind RAW
Shawn Mangenje
A photographer who moved from the UK to Detroit in 2015 and began hosting workshops for the city’s creatives. Convinced Detroit was too often shown in the wrong light, he made it his mission to change that. At RAW he leads the creative and shoots much of the photography that defines how the city sees itself here.
Paige Pope
Michigan native and Central Michigan University graduate. A serial entrepreneur, she has started and run a range of ventures and co-founded RAW Detroit, where she leads the company’s growth, drawing on six years in multimedia to build RAW’s audience and business as the platform scales.