''The Plain Dealer'' is the major
newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, spor ...
of
Cleveland
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the United States, U.S. U.S. state, state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along ...
,
Ohio
Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...
, United States. In fall 2019, it ranked 23rd in U.S.
newspaper circulation
Print circulation is the average number of copies of a publication. The number of copies of a non-periodical publication (such as a book) are usually called print run. Circulation is not always the same as copies sold, often called paid circulat ...
, a significant drop since March 2013, when its circulation ranked 17th daily and 15th on Sunday.
As of May 2019, ''The Plain Dealer'' had 94,838 daily readers and 171,404 readers on Sunday.
''The Plain Dealers
media market
A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area (DMA), television market area, or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same (or similar) television and radio station offerings, and may also incl ...
, the Cleveland-Akron Designated Market Area, has a population of 3.8 million people, making it the 19th-largest market in the United States.
In August 2013, ''The Plain Dealer'' reduced home delivery to four days a week, including Sunday. A daily version of ''The Plain Dealer'' is available electronically as well as in print at stores,
newsracks and newsstands.
History
Founding
The newspaper was established in January 1842 when two brothers, Joseph William Gray and Admiral Nelson Gray, took over ''The Cleveland Advertiser'' and changed its name to ''The Plain Dealer''. ''The Cleveland Advertiser'' had been published from 1831 to 1841.
Some sources attribute the current spelling of the city name to ''The Cleveland Advertiser''s dropping the first "a" from the name of the city's founder,
Moses Cleaveland, so the newspaper's name would fit on the masthead, but others dispute that story.
Name
When the Gray brothers began publishing their newspaper in 1842, they wrote an explanation of their choice of name; after a discussion of several other possible names, they wrote, "but our democracy and modesty suggest the only name that befits the occasion, the PLAIN DEALER."
The phrase means "someone who interacts or does business straightforwardly and honestly".
Their choice of name was probably inspired by ''The Plaindealer'', a weekly paper described as Jacksonian or radical, published in New York City by
William Leggett from 1836 to either 1837 or 1839.
Several other newspapers in California,[(The ''Orange County Plain Dealer'', founded by an Ohioan and published 1898–1925.) ] Colorado,[(The ''Ouray County Plaindealer'', published since 1877 under a variety of names, and those names included "Plaindealer" during 1888–1939 and again since 1969.) ] Indiana, Iowa, Montana, Oregon,[(The ''Plaindealer'', of Roseburg, Oregon, published 1870–1905.) ] Wisconsin,[(The ''Waukesha Plain Dealer'', published 1854–1857.) ] Manitoba, and South Australia later adopted versions of the same name in the 19th and early 20th centuries. At least three continue: ''Wabash Plain Dealer'', which has served Wabash, Indiana
Wabash is a city in Noble Township, Wabash County, in the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 10,666 at the 2010 census. The city is the county seat of Wabash County.
Wabash is notable as claiming to be the first electrically lighted ci ...
since 1859; the '' Ouray County Plaindealer'' of Ouray County, Colorado under names that included "Plaindealer" during 1888–1939 and since 1969; and the ''Cresco Times Plain Dealer'' of Cresco, Iowa. Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
reportedly said about the Cleveland paper, "I think that by all odds, the Plain Dealer has the best newspaper name of any in the world." Although its first edition in 1842 was captioned simply "The Plain Dealer", the name on the newspaper's masthead included "Cleveland" for much of its history, and dropped the city name sometime between 1965 and 1970.
Ownership history
Joseph William Gray owned (initially with his brother) and edited the newspaper from 1842 until his death in 1862.[ A series of editors controlled the paper between then and 1885, when real estate investor Liberty Emery Holden purchased it.] When Holden died in 1913, ownership of the Plain Dealer was placed in trust for his heirs.[ Until 1967, the paper's publishing company, The Plain Dealer Publishing Company, was part of the Forest City Publishing Company, which also published the '']Cleveland News
The ''Cleveland News'' was a daily and Sunday American newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. It was published from 1905 until 1960 when it was absorbed by the rival paper ''The Cleveland Press''.
History
The ''Cleveland News'' traces its antecedents t ...
'' until its closing in 1960. One of Holden's heirs, Holden's great-grandson Thomas Vail, became the paper's editor and publisher in 1963.[ On March 1, 1967, the Holden trustees, including Vail, sold the Plain Dealer to ]Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr.
Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr. (born Solomon Isadore Neuhaus; May 24, 1895 – August 29, 1979) was an American broadcasting businessman, as well as a magazine and newspaper publisher. He was the founder of Advance Publications.
Early life
Newhouse ...
's newspaper chain for $54.2 million, then the highest price ever paid for a U.S. newspaper. Advance Publications Inc., a New York-based media company owned by Newhouse's heirs, continues to own the Plain Dealer.
Competition
''The Plain Dealer'' has been the sole major newspaper for Cleveland and Northeast Ohio since its two main twentieth-century competitors, the ''Cleveland News
The ''Cleveland News'' was a daily and Sunday American newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. It was published from 1905 until 1960 when it was absorbed by the rival paper ''The Cleveland Press''.
History
The ''Cleveland News'' traces its antecedents t ...
'' and ''The Cleveland Press
The ''Cleveland Press'' was a daily American newspaper published in Cleveland, Ohio from November 2, 1878, through June 17, 1982. From 1928 to 1966, the paper's editor was Louis B. Seltzer.
Known for many years as one of the country's most in ...
'', closed in 1960 and 1982, respectively.[
]
Awards and honors
* 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary
The Pulitzer Prize for Commentary is an award administered by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism "for distinguished commentary, using any available journalistic tool". It is one of the fourteen American Pulitzer Prizes that are ...
( Connie Schultz).[The Pulitzer Prizes (2005]
Retrieved June 5, 2006.["It's Time To Do What Feels Right", Connie Schultz, February 16, 2006]
. Retrieved June 5, 2006.
* 1953 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning
The Pulitzer Prize for Illustrated Reporting and Commentary is one of the fourteen Pulitzer Prizes that is annually awarded for journalism in the United States. It is the successor to the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning awarded from 1922 t ...
( Edward D. Kuekes for ''Aftermath'')
* 2008 Missouri Lifestyle Journalism Awards
The Missouri Lifestyle Journalism Awards were first awarded in 1960 as the Penney-Missouri Awards to recognize women's pages that covered topics other than society, club, and fashion news, and that also covered such topics as lifestyle and consume ...
"Coping when all is hopeless"
by Diana Keough)
* 2006 Missouri Lifestyle Journalism Awards
The Missouri Lifestyle Journalism Awards were first awarded in 1960 as the Penney-Missouri Awards to recognize women's pages that covered topics other than society, club, and fashion news, and that also covered such topics as lifestyle and consume ...
(Plain Dealer Sunday Magazine, an
"In Balraj's Realm"
by Karen R. Long)
* 2003 '' Editor & Publisher'' Editor of the Year Award (Doug Clifton)
* 12-time Ohio News Photographer's Association Award recipient (2001-2011, 2013).
* Nine-time Ohio Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...
General Excellence Award winner:
** 1994 (Division IV)
** 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2012 (Division V)
* Two-time Ohio Associated Press First Amendment
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...
Award recipient (2001, 2004)
* Numerous other AP Awards in various individual and specific categories (Division V)
Editors (Editors-in-Chief)
* Tim Warsinskey (March 1, 2020 – June 1, 2020)
* George Rodrigue
George Rodrigue (March 13, 1944 – December 14, 2013) was an American artist who in the late 1960s began painting Louisiana landscapes, followed soon after by outdoor family gatherings and southwest Louisiana 19th-century and early 20th-cent ...
(2015–2020)
* Debra Adams Simmons (2010–2014)
* Susan Goldberg (2007–2010)
* Doug Clifton (1999–2007)
* David Hall (1992–1999)
* Thomas Vail (as editor and publisher) (1963-1992)
** David Hopcraft (executive editor) (1978–-1984).
* Wright Bryan (1954–1963)
* Paul Bellamy (1933–1954)
Cleveland.com
Cleveland.com, which was launched by Advance Publications in 1997, is the sister company of ''The Plain Dealer''. Cleveland.com has only an online presence, while ''The Plain Dealer'' provides a print newspaper only, not a digital edition. Content from each is cross-posted on the other. Cleveland.com is described by its owners as "the premier news and information website in the state of Ohio". Though it is under the same ownership as ''The Plain Dealer'', cleveland.com was a separate organization with separate staff and offices.[
]
History
The corporate structure underpinning these changes was the launch, announced in April 2013 and effective that August, of a "new, digitally focused company," also under ownership of Advance Publications, initially (in 2013) called the Northeast Ohio Media Group (NEOMG) and renamed in January 2016 as Advance Ohio. (The renaming occurred several weeks following a major reorganization of the newsroom that included layoffs.[) The original, older parent company, Plain Dealer Publishing Company, kept responsibility for ''The Plain Dealer'' (i.e., the print edition), only, while NEOMG gained responsibility for operating cleveland.com and Sun Newspapers (also known as the ''Sun News'' suburban papers, a group of smaller, weekly, more suburban-oriented newspapers in the Greater Cleveland metro area also owned by Advance Publications).][ NEOMG was also made responsible for all ad sales and marketing for ''The Plain Dealer'', ''Sun News'', and cleveland.com.][ Both NEOMG (later Advance Ohio) and the Plain Dealer Publishing Company provide content to ''The Plain Dealer'' and cleveland.com.][
One way that contemporary observers viewed the 2013 establishment of NEOMG, in conjunction with the termination of daily home delivery and personnel cuts of the same year, was as implementation by ''The Plain Dealers owner, Advance Publications, of a strategy to change its business from daily delivery of a print newspaper to online delivery of news, as Advance had done when it ended daily delivery of the '']New Orleans Times-Picayune
''The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate'' is an American newspaper published in New Orleans, Louisiana, since January 25, 1837. The current publication is the result of the 2019 acquisition of ''The Times-Picayune'' (itself a result of th ...
''.[
Another way that the formation of NEOMG has been viewed is as a strategy to weaken, and ultimately kill, a labor union, by moving tasks from the unionized ''Plain Dealer'' staff to the non-unionized staff at cleveland.com.] The division of ''The Plain Dealer'' into two separate companies, a unionized, print organization and a non-union, online organization, was dubbed a "transparent union-busting schism scheme" by '' Cleveland Scene'' magazine. The labor union representing Plain Dealer employees was called, from its founding in 1933 until its closure in 2020 as a result of these changes, Newspaper Guild Local 1, because it was the first local chapter of the national union now called the NewsGuild. The Plain Dealer News Guild also called NEOMG's formation evidence of Advance's involvement in "union-busting", and repeated the claim in response to subsequent layoffs.
In February 2017, Advance Ohio named Chris Quinn editor and publisher. Quinn previously served as vice president of content at NEOMG and was metro editor at ''The Plain Dealer'' prior to that.
In 2019, Cleveland.com was attracting an average of 9.9 million users monthly.[
]
Reviews
In 2006, ''Cleveland Magazine
''Cleveland Magazine'' is a monthly magazine focused on Northeastern Ohio, USA. It was founded in 1972. The inaugural April 1972 issue featured a young Dennis Kucinich, a frequent profile subject of the magazine. Published monthly by the Great La ...
'' called Cleveland.com "mediocre compared to its peers", while saying that it "has only recently started to improve".
In 2012, '' Cleveland Scene'' magazine said that "Advance's sites are notoriously poorly designed and borderline unnavigable" and, to demonstrate its non-local management, said that Advance wanted to give the cleveland.com site a black-and-yellow color scheme, "until someone informed them those are Steelers colors".
Shrinking in the 21st century
Since the late 20th century, like other media business organizations, the newspaper has faced reductions in circulation and revenue, and undergone restructuring and layoffs.
Declining circulation
The paper's circulation declined from the 1980s through about the first decade of the twenty-first century, then dropped precipitously in the following decade or so; the following figures (using circulation numbers derived from the same source, though made public only in other sources and in a patchwork fashion) show that in the 24 years between 1983 and 2007 the paper's circulation dropped by 33% (daily) and 11% (Sunday), while in the next 12 years between 2007 and 2019, it lost a further 79% and 62% of its daily and Sunday circulation.
Reductions in newspaper size and delivery
On December 18, 2005, ''The Plain Dealer'' ceased publication of its weekly ''Sunday Magazine'', which had been published since 1919. Its demise was attributed to rising expenses and the poor economy. The editor of ''The Plain Dealer'', Doug Clifton, stated that stories that would formerly have appeared in the ''Sunday Magazine'' would be integrated into other areas of the paper.
In June 2008, the paper announced that it would cut four sections and an average of 32 pages per week.
In August 2013, ''The Plain Dealer'' reduced home delivery
Delivery is the process of transporting goods from a source location to a predefined destination. Cargo (physical goods) is primarily delivered via roads and railroads on land, shipping lanes on the sea, and airline networks in the air. Cer ...
from seven days a week to four: Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It continued to publish an edition seven days a week that is available in electronic form at cleveland.com, and in print at stores, newsracks and newsstands.[ Subscribers to the four print editions have access to the digital edition seven days a week.] (Plans announced in April 2013 had called for a reduction to three days of delivery by August 2013, but Saturday delivery was retained after complaints from auto dealers, a major category of Saturday advertiser.)
Closure and transfer of bureaus
''The Plain Dealer'' formerly operated a variety of news bureaus. By the middle of 2014, both the state capital bureau in Columbus and the Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
bureau were shifted to the Northeast Ohio Media Group, as shown by the affiliations of their bureau chiefs.
Elimination of staff, 2006-2020
In the early 2000s, ''The Plain Dealer'' employed almost 350 reporters and editors; by 2020 their number was zero. The elimination of its entire staff took the form of a series of cuts between 2006 and 2020, each described below.
2006-2009 buyouts, staff cuts, and pay decrease
Between October and November 2006, about 64 employees, or 1/6 of those in the newsroom, accepted a buyout offer to leave the newspaper, reducing the newsroom staff from 372 to 308.
In December 2008, the paper reduced its newsroom staff by 50 persons, or 20%; 27 accepted a buyout offer, and then 23 more were fired.
In 2009, employees agreed to accept a 12% pay cut in exchange for a two-year no-layoff agreement.
2013 cuts
In December 2012, members of the Newspaper Guild
The NewsGuild-CWA is a trade union, labor union founded by newspaper journalists in 1933. In addition to improving wages and working conditions, its constitution says its purpose is to fight for honesty in journalism and the news industry's busin ...
reported that ''The Plain Dealer'' management had told them that, after the January 2013 expiration of a no-layoff provision in the union's contract, it planned to eliminate about one-third of the newspaper's staff, cutting 58 of 168 union positions.
Later in December 2012, the Newspaper Guild endorsed an agreement with ''Plain Dealer'' management accepting the expected layoffs of 58 journalists starting in May 2013, but restoring some of the pay cut union members had accepted in 2009, setting a severance package, and minimizing future layoffs through 2019 (to "just one more modest downsizing"). The agreement also allowed work to "flow freely" between ''The Plain Dealer'' and cleveland.com, in particular changing the rules to allow work of non-union staff of cleveland.com to be published in ''The Plain Dealer''. Following the agreement, about two dozen newsroom employees departed voluntarily.
On the morning of Wednesday, July 31, 2013, after having been told in April that layoffs expected for May were "on hold" until the summer,[ nearly one third of the newsroom staff was eliminated through layoffs and voluntary resignations. The 2013 round of layoffs led to accusations by the Guild that management had misled the union by cutting more employees than had been agreed upon in the 2012 agreement, specifically by reneging on a promise to keep at least 110 union jobs in the newsroom.]
This concern was heightened when, within 24 hours after the layoffs, NEOMG hired away from ''The Plain Dealer'' thirteen of those who were not laid off, leaving 97 employees in the newsroom. The union filed a complaint with the NLRB which it settled in August 2014.
2019 cuts
''The Plain Dealer'' announced plans to lay off a third of its remaining unionized staff in December 2018 as part of a transition to a "centralized production system".
In March 2019, the paper laid off twelve (or fourteen) editors and reporters, and also outsourced its production, dropping another 24 jobs. Eight veteran reporters volunteered to take buyouts to spare others losing their jobs. Cleveland.com editor Chris Quinn blamed the parent organization's falling revenue on the print side of the operation. "It's just the falling circulation numbers in print, they continue to hamper us", Quinn said. "So we'll – you hate to see them go, they're veteran people, it's a lot of experience. Nothing matters more. But if it fits for where they are in their lives, and we can save some money, we're going for it." Rachel Dissell, a vice president of the News Guild, addressed Quinn's remarks, saying "we are baffled how print circulation can be blamed for buyouts at a digital company that we've been told again and again over five years is a separate entity from the Plain Dealer."
2020 cuts
On March 3, 2020, The Plain Dealer announced that it would lay off 22 more journalists. Their departures were delayed by two weeks, however, because of the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
, leading to what was described as "a farewell blitz of vital reporting" on that topic by the soon-to-depart staff. On April 6, 2020, the Plain Dealer's editor announced that ten of its fourteen remaining reporters would be assigned to cover Ohio counties outside of Cleveland, rather than Cuyahoga County. Those ten asked to be laid off instead, and on April 10, 2020, they were. This left the Plain Dealer with a staff of four union journalists: investigative journalist John Caniglia, travel editor Susan Glaser, art critic Steven Litt, and sports columnist Terry Pluto.
On May 12, 2020, it was announced that the final four union journalists would be laid off and offered positions in the non-union cleveland.com newsroom. Under an agreement with the Northeast Ohio Newspaper Guild, the guild would be barred from participating in union organizing activities in the cleveland.com newsroom for one year. The same day, after three months of serving as Plain Dealer editor and overseeing this period of layoffs, Tim Warsinskey announced that he would be starting in a new role as Senior Editor for Advance Local, the parent company of cleveland.com, on June 1, 2020.
These layoffs were the culmination of a drop over 20 years in membership in the United States' first News Guild (Local 1 of that union) from 340 members to zero.
Politifact Ohio
In July 2010, ''The Plain Dealer'' launched PolitiFact Ohio, a website that analyzes political issues relevant to Ohio and the greater Cleveland area. It also conducted fact-checking and was produced in conjunction with its creator, the ''Tampa Bay Times
The ''Tampa Bay Times'', previously named the ''St. Petersburg Times'' until 2011, is an American newspaper published in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. It has won fourteen Pulitzer Prizes since 1964, and in 2009, won two in a single ...
''. Four years later, the relationship was ended. Although the operation had generated criticism, the decision to drop it was attributed instead to a desire to keep all content on cleveland.com rather than the separate PolitiFact Ohio site, which remains available as an archive.
Pricing, distribution
The copy rates are $3 for daily or $5 on Sunday/Thanksgiving Day at newsstands/newsracks. The full subscription weekly price is $4.65. These prices only apply to ''The Plain Dealers home delivery area, which are the Northeast Ohio counties of Cuyahoga, Lake
A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...
, Geauga
Geauga County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 95,397. The county seat is Chardon. The county is named for an Onondaga or Seneca language word meaning 'raccoon', originally the name of the ...
, Portage, Erie
Erie (; ) is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. Erie is the fifth largest city in Pennsylvania and the largest city in Northwestern Pennsylvania with a population of 94,831 a ...
, Ottawa, Summit, Ashtabula, Medina
Medina,, ', "the radiant city"; or , ', (), "the city" officially Al Madinah Al Munawwarah (, , Turkish: Medine-i Münevvere) and also commonly simplified as Madīnah or Madinah (, ), is the second-holiest city in Islam, and the capital of the ...
and Lorain. ''The Plain Dealer'' is available all over the state at select newsstands, including in the state capital, Columbus, and anywhere in the US or world via US mail service, in which prices are higher.
Cleveland.com criticism and controversies
Removal of debate video
In October 2014, the Northeast Ohio Media Group hosted the three Ohio candidates for governor in what would be their only joint appearance. The debate was held before the NEOMG's editorial board (which also serves as the editorial board of ''The Plain Dealer'') and NEOMG reporters. Incumbent Gov. John Kasich
John Richard Kasich Jr. ( ; born May 13, 1952) is an American politician, author, and television news host who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1983 to 2001 and as the 69th governor of Ohio from 2011 to 2019. A Republican, Kasic ...
, a Republican, largely ignored his main rival, Democrat Ed FitzGerald. Kasich refused to admit he could hear the questions of FitzGerald, who was sitting next to him, and insisted that a reporter repeat them.
During the debate, a video camera was positioned eight feet in front of the candidates. The resulting video was posted on cleveland.com. A few days later, however, it was removed. When other sites posted copies of the now-deleted video, the NEOMG sent letters threatening legal action. TechDirt reported that the owner of the Cleveland ''Plain Dealer'' had demanded that the unflattering video be taken down. The NEOMG's actions were covered by other media organizations and it was criticized by media observers. Chris Quinn, the NEOMG vice president who sent the letters, declined all requests for comment.
At 7 a.m. on the day after the election, which Kasich endorsed by the NEOMG won easily, the news organization posted online an explanation of events written by its reader representative. The column cited this as Quinn's explanation:
Shortly after the video was posted, the Kasich campaign contacted him and said it had not been aware a video would be posted online. Quinn eventually decided that his failure to explicitly explain the presence of a video camera was unfair. Further, "I thought that if I stated my reasons, the obvious next step would be people going to the candidates and asking them if they had any objection to putting the video back up," Quinn is quoted as saying. "That would mean my error could put people into an uncomfortable situation."
The explanation left at least some critics unsatisfied.
Tamir Rice coverage
As part of NEOMG's coverage of the 2014 shooting of Tamir Rice
On November 22, 2014, Tamir E. Rice, a 12-year-old African-American boy, was killed in Cleveland, Ohio, by Timothy Loehmann, a 26-year-old white police officer. Rice was carrying a replica toy gun; Loehmann shot him almost immediately upon arri ...
by Cleveland Police, NEOMG published a stories explaining that Rice's parents had criminal backgrounds. NEOMG Vice President of Content Chris Quinn attempted to justify reporting on the criminal backgrounds of Rice's parents in a follow-up piece, pointing out that Rice was playing with a toy gun that officers mistook for a real one at the time of the shooting. As a result, Quinn noted, many people asserted that the shooting was justified.
"One of the questions these people raise is why a 12-year-old was walking about in a public place, randomly aiming what looks like a real gun in various directions, to the point where a witness called 9-1-1 in fear," Quinn wrote in a piece defending his organization's reporting on the incident.
Quinn went on to postulate that "One way to stop police from killing any more 12-year-olds might be to understand the forces that lead children to undertake behavior that could put them in the sights of police guns." Cleveland Scene Magazine compared Quinn's explanation to "digging himself a hole the exact width and depth of a coffin" in a piece asserting that the narrative regarding Rice's parents' criminal histories "is absent any context whatsoever".
NEOMG's handling of the situation was condemned on a national scale by the Huffington Post, as well as internally by Plain Dealer staffers.
PD criticism and controversies
Political leanings
In the presidential election of 1864, the paper was strongly opposed to the reelection of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
. An editorial dated 5 November, asked rhetorically, "Do you want four more years of war? Vote for Lincoln. Do you want the Constitution destroyed? Vote for Lincoln. … Do you want the degraded Negros made your social and political equals? Vote for Lincoln."
''The Plain Dealer'' has been criticized in the past by liberal columnists for staking out generally conservative positions on its editorial page, despite serving a predominantly Democratic readership base. In 2004, the editorial board voted to endorse Democratic US Senator John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician and diplomat who currently serves as the first United States special presidential envoy for climate. A member of the Forbes family and the Democratic Party, he ...
; after publisher Alex Machaskee overruled it, ordering the board to write an endorsement of Republican George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
, editorial page editor Brent Larkin persuaded Machaskee to withhold any endorsement. The news coverage is generally more neutral, with national and international news often culled from wire service
A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and radio and television broadcasters. A news agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswire, ...
s, including ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
''.
The paper had been criticized as being too soft in its coverage of Senator George Voinovich from Ohio and, in the 2004 election cycle for the U.S. Senate, not providing fair coverage, if any, to Voinovich's opponent, State Sen. Eric Fingerhut, a Democrat.
Publishing concealed weapons permit holder lists
In 2005, the newspaper twice published lists of concealed weapon permit holders from the five counties around Cleveland. Editor Doug Clifton defended the paper's decision, sparking a feud with a pro-carry lobbyist group. State Senator Steve Austria called it abuse of the media access privilege, saying publishing these names would threaten the safety of the men and women who obtain these permits. An Ohio gun rights
The right to keep and bear arms (often referred to as the right to bear arms) is a right for people to possess weapons (arms) for the preservation of life, liberty, and property. The purpose of gun rights is for self-defense, including securi ...
group then published Clifton's home address and phone number.
"Held stories" controversy
''The Plain Dealer'' made national headlines in summer 2005, when editor Douglas Clifton announced that the newspaper was withholding two stories "of profound importance" after Judith Miller
Judith Miller (born January 2, 1948) is an American journalist and commentator known for her coverage of Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) program both before and after the 2003 invasion, which was later discovered to have been based on ...
of ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' and Matthew Cooper of ''Time Magazine
''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Ma ...
'' were ordered to reveal confidential sources who had provided information on Valerie Plame
Valerie Elise Plame (born August 13, 1963) is an American writer, spy novelist, and former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer. As the subject of the 2003 Plame affair, also known as the CIA leak scandal, Plame's identity as a CIA officer ...
, Joseph Wilson's wife, being a CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
operative. Wilson was a prominent critic of the administration. The decision to compel the reporters to reveal sources was seen in the news media as a license to go after reporters and newspapers in the courtroom for not revealing confidential informants. It was considered a violation of the trust between reporter and said informants. Clifton was vilified in the news media as "having no backbone" and he admitted that people could refer to him as "chickenshit". Clifton told the national press that while he and the reporters involved in the story were willing to be jailed for not revealing sources, the legal department of the Plain Dealer Publishing Company was worried that the newspaper itself would be sued and strongly opposed the printing of the stories. "Talking isn't an option and jail is too high a price to pay", Clifton said.["WHO HAS YOUR BACK? Journalism in the Corporate Age", ''Columbia Journalism Review'', September 2005.]
The controversy ended a month later, when the '' Cleveland Scene,'' an alternative weekly Cleveland newspaper, published a similar story. ''The Plain Dealer'' then printed its withheld story, a report that a federal corruption probe had targeted former Mayor
In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well ...
Michael R. White. Both newspapers' stories were based on leaked documents. The second withheld story has yet to be revealed.["Keeping reporters' notes out of court," ''The American Editor,'' August 2005 – October 2005, FREEDOM OF INFORMATION. Pam Luecke, Author.]
Music critic sidelining
On September 17, 2008, Donald Rosenberg
Donald Rosenberg (born 1952) is an American musician, music critic and journalist.
Biography
Rosenberg was born in New York City and educated at the Mannes College of Music and the Yale School of Music. He is a horn player, who participated i ...
, ''The Plain Dealers music critic of sixteen years, was told by the paper's editor, Susan Goldberg, that he would no longer be covering performances of the Cleveland Orchestra
The Cleveland Orchestra, based in Cleveland, is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the " Big Five". Founded in 1918 by the pianist and impresario Adella Prentiss Hughes, the orchestra plays most of its concerts at Se ...
. Rosenberg had criticized its performances under its conductor Franz Welser-Möst
Franz Leopold Maria Möst (born 16 August 1960), known professionally as Franz Welser-Möst, is an Austrian conductor. He is currently music director of the Cleveland Orchestra.
Biography
Franz Leopold Maria Möst was born in Linz, Austria, ...
, although his reviews of Welser-Möst as a conductor of operas had been positive. Terrance C. Z. Egger, president and publisher of the paper, was on the orchestra's board.
Welser-Möst had been strongly criticized during his earlier tenure at the London Philharmonic Orchestra, when London critics gave him the nickname "Frankly Worse than Most". In December 2008, Rosenberg sued Cleveland's Musical Arts Association, the newspaper and several members of their staffs, alleging a conspiracy to have him demoted. Rosenberg dropped a number of claims against the paper in 2009. In August 2009, a jury rejected the remaining claims.
Shirley Strickland Saffold
In March 2010, ''The Plain Dealer'' reported that about eighty comments had been posted to articles on its web site by an account registered to the email address of Shirley Strickland Saffold, a judge sitting on the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas
A court of common pleas is a common kind of court structure found in various common law jurisdictions. The form originated with the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster, which was created to permit individuals to press civil grievances against one ...
. Several of the comments, posted under the pseudonym ''lawmiss'', discussed matters that were or had been before the judge. Although the judge's 23-year-old daughter Sydney Saffold took responsibility for the postings, the paper was able to use a public records request and determine that the exact times and dates of some of the postings corresponded to the times that the corresponding articles were being viewed on the judge's court-issued computer. The revelation led one attorney, who had been criticized in the postings, to request the judge recuse
Judicial disqualification, also referred to as recusal, is the act of abstaining from participation in an official action such as a legal proceeding due to a conflict of interest of the presiding court official or administrative officer. Applica ...
herself from a homicide trial in which he represented the defendant. Ohio Supreme Court
The Ohio Supreme Court, Officially known as The Supreme Court of the State of Ohio is the highest court in the U.S. state of Ohio, with final authority over interpretations of Ohio law and the Ohio Constitution. The court has seven members, a ...
Acting Chief Justice Paul E. Pfeifer subsequently removed Saffold from the case.
In April, the judge sued the paper, its editor Susan Goldberg, and affiliated companies for $50 million, claiming violation of its privacy policy. In December 2010, Saffold dropped the suit against the newspaper, and reached settlement with Advance Internet
Advance Digital provides sales and content strategy, product development and technology to the Advance Local media group, part of Advance Publications. Advance Publications is an American media company owned by the descendants of Samuel Irving Ne ...
, ''The Plain Dealer'' affiliate that ran the newspaper's website. The terms of the settlement were undisclosed, but included a charitable contribution in the name of Saffold's mother.
See also
*
References
Further reading
* Shaw, Archer H. (1942)
''The Plain Dealer: One Hundred Years in Cleveland''
New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
* Tidyman, John (2009). ''Gimme Rewrite, Sweetheart: Tales From the Last Glory Days of Cleveland Newspapers''. Cleveland, OH: Gray & Company, Publishers.
External links
''The Plain Dealer'' on Cleveland.Com (editorial site)
''Cleveland Plain Dealer'' (business site)
''The Plain Dealer'' article in the ''Encyclopedia of Cleveland History''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Plain Dealer, The
1842 establishments in Ohio
Advance Publications
Daily newspapers published in the United States
Newspapers published in Cleveland
Publications established in 1842