Award winning Michigan journalist Charlie Cain died Saturday at Detroit’s Henry Ford Hospital following a brief, but valiant battle with cancer. Cain, 60, had been a Detroit News reporter and editor, starting as a copy boy while attending Michigan State University. He was a journalism graduate of MSU and served as managing editor of the State News.
He also worked as capitol correspondent at WJBK-TV in the early 1980s.
Cain was one of the most respected and longest-serving members of the Lansing Press Corps.
He held numerous jobs covering local and statewide politics while at the Detroit News. He served as Lansing Bureau Chief for more than two decades until leaving in 2009.
He then worked as a consultant with Truscott Rossman, a Lansing marketing communications firm.
He was a third generation journalist following in the footsteps of his late father Charles C. Cain, who worked at the Detroit bureau of the Associated Press for 39 years as well as his mother Ruth Cain, a current columnist at the Grosse Pointe News.
His grandfather, Charles C. Cain, was editor and publisher of the Attleboro Sun Times in Attleboro, Mass.
Five of his six siblings are in the business: Nancy Cain directs PR at AAA Michigan, Brad Cain works at the Associated Press in Salem, Ore., Carol Cain is senior producer and host of WWJ-TV CBS Detroit’s “Michigan Matters” and is a columnist at the Detroit Free Press, Laura Cain is a vice president of communications at McDonald’s Corp., Janice Cain is a marketing consultant in Denver, and brother Chris Cain works in nuclear medicine in Salt Lake City.
Brother-in-law Dave Posavetz is chief photographer at the Macomb Daily and brother-in-law Rob Kozloff is a photo editor at the Chicago Tribune.
Cain leaves behind two daughters, Kelly a student at Oakland University and Katie, who works in communications for the U.S. Army.
A private family service will be held July 16 in Grosse Pointe with a memorial service scheduled later in the month in Lansing.
In lieu of flowers the family suggests donations to the Michigan State University journalism program in memory of Charlie Cain. See https://www.givingto.msu.edu/gift