A front-page story accompanied by photos of President Reid and the presidents of the University of Michigan and Michigan State University covers the hearing before a state House Appropriations Subcommittee yesterday at which the three presidents pointed up the importance of their universities' research dollars to the Michigan economy. In an interview later with Free Press editors, they advocated separating their funding from the state's other public universities - a move endorsed by Gov. Granholm. The research done at the three universities justifies separate funding, they argued. Referring to research grants received by the three institutions, Reid said, "Here we are bringing in excess of $1.3 billion annually to this state. We're not only creating jobs, we're creating knowledge, which hopefully will lead to more jobs" (WZZM-TV ran an abbreviated online version of the Free Press story.)