More Wide Open Mopin': Do Tell Other Names Considered

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Jill Miller Zimon is still storm tracking the F-5 cyclone that roared through the 'sphere and blew the roof off Wide Open last week. But there is something still unsaid. What other names were considered for the flattened Plain Dealer-financed homestead that was shared by the MSM and indy bloggers? Was it always to be Wide Open? Or something saucier?

Somewhere along the line, I recall reading that Jill was not exactly sold on the nameplate that wound up gracing the experiment on Cleveland.com. At least, that is what I think I recall. Maybe Wide Open was jinxed from the start. Sailors believe names are important. Ships with unsuitable names are thought unseaworthy; they risk the lives of their crew and can disappear under the waves at the mere hint of a ripple.

The bloggers who no longer blog for the newspaper all used clever or stolid names for their personal sites -- Nixguy and Bizzyblog and Ohio Daily and Writes Like She Talks. Wide Open always seemed a little weak compared to monikers like those.

Ohio Journalists And Campaign Contributions: Money Flows To Democrats

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- There's a strongly worded sentence at the very end of this column in a certain large Ohio newspaper today that says journalists cannot contribute to political campaigns. But they do. The money flows indirectly through their union, the Newspaper Guild, which is an affiliate of the 750,000-member Communications Workers of America.

Almost all of the CWA's money goes to Democrats. The national Guild's recommended model contract -- which is not adopted or in force at every unionized newsroom -- actually contains language that calls for journalists to set aside a portion of their paychecks to support politicians.

"There shall be provision for payroll deduction of political contributions for employees who voluntarily authorize such deductions in writing."

Contrast that statement to the very last sentence in the column that appeared today in Cleveland: "You can't contribute to a political candidate and then write about his or her campaign, either as a paid employee or as a paid free-lancer for . . . on paper or online. Period."

Does that seem to suggest Guild members ought not be writing about U.S. Reps. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, Zack Space and Betty Sutton, three Ohioans who have gotten CWA money this election cycle? Does that imply there is a conflict of interest when journalists belong to a union that uses a percentage of its financial resources to fund campaigns?

Clearly there are opposing views about political activity and journalism, and management appears to be taking a harder line than labor, which favors allowing payroll deduction plans for political donations by reporters and editors. (Note: I don't know of any newspapers in Ohio that have such a payroll deduction plan.)

Not every newspaper in Ohio is covered by a Guild contract. Akron, Canton, Cleveland, Dayton, Toledo and Youngstown are the big dailies where journalists belong to the Newspaper Guild, along with the afternoon Cincinnati Post, which is scheduled to shut down at the end of next month. The Columbus Dispatch and Cincinnati Enquirer are non-union.

Another Midwest Newspaper Blogger Axed: Indy Star Says He Went Too Far

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- The crash landings seem to be outnumbering the takeoffs. While the Ohiosphere fulminated over the departures of indy bloggers Jill Zimon and Jeff Coryell from The Plain Dealer's now closed Wide Open, there was another ugly episode involving newspaper blogging at the metro daily in Indianapolis. An African American editorial writer at the Indianapolis Star was sent packing for what his newsroom bosses considered a racially crude posting about a city official, who also is black.

RiShawn Biddle's attack on the city and county council president was quickly pulled down from Expresso, the paper's blog. Expresso went decaf. The Star's editor, Dennis Ryerson, put up a note that apologized and said the comments "did not meet the standards of the Star." Ryerson has a tie to The Plain Dealer -- years ago he was the newspaper's editoral page editor, a post now held by Brent Larkin.

Former Star Columnist Ruth Holladay said on her own blog that the paper ran into trouble when it tried to take the muzzle off a writer. He bit somebody. So the muzzle is back.

"With so few blacks working at the Star, Ryerson and Co. now have a real credibility crisis on their hands. They let Biddle unleash; now they have to put the muzzle back on and make nice with the brothers and sisters. Will they fire RiShawn? Or will he just 'disappear' for another six months. What a crazy place."

While the Indy incident and the Cleveland uproar are different -- nobody says the Ohio bloggers used inappropriate language -- they do share a theme. Newspapers get wigged out by stuff that the blogosphere seems to be able to take in stride. Harsh language, insults, political action by bloggers, the list goes on, and it is recognized for what it is -- the detonations, loud noise, mixing of volatile compounds and personalities and issues on a non-print platform. The 'sphere is raw and for percussion. Bloggers don't seem to flinch when politicians, be they congressmen in the Cleveland suburbs or council chiefs in Indianapolis, send messages of aggrievement. Editors seem to take the complaints more seriously, some would say too seriously.

This week two big Midwest newspapers folded in the face of controversy stirred up by bloggers. The press wants a launch on the Web, but it gets nervous, leery, and freezes at the stick instead of juicing the afterburners.

OH-14 Steve LaTourette: No Pressure From GOP Congressman In Dem Blogger Firing

CLEVELAND (TDB) -- Capitol Hill insiders insist Republican U.S. Rep. Steven C. LaTourette did not pull strings with top newsroom managers at The Plain Dealer to have a Democratic critic in the Ohio blogosphere sacked. The blogger, Jeff Coryell, was ousted from his post Tuesday as a paid contributor to Wide Open. There have been numerous reports saying LaTourette used his influence to have Coryell bounced. Another of the Democratic bloggers on Wide Open, Jill Miller Zimon quit today in solidarity with Coryell and said the fact she had given money to Democrats in Ohio would probably limit her freedom to say what she wanted on the newspaper's site.

Sacking Coryell is generating a blogstorm, with critics (mostly Democrats) lining up to say LaTourette had him dumped. Although the congressman has widely been portrayed as the heavy, sources The Daily Bellwether spoke to all agreed that LaTourette did not ask for a firing, played no role in the sacking of Coryell, did not express anger, nor put pressure on the newspaper or threaten it in any way. The sources do agree that LaTourette spoke to The Plain Dealer's editorial page editor, Brent Larkin, briefly earlier this month about Coryell's work appearing on the newspaper's Web site. Coryell's name reportedly came up when Federal Election Commission campaign finance records were made public, and LaTourette mentioned to Larkin that Coryell had given money to the congressman's Democratic opponent, former Ohio Court of Appeals Judge William O'Neill. LaTourette is supposed to have said something like "what's up with that" during a brief chat, but did not suggest or demand that Coryell be fired, the sources say.

According to the insiders, the seven-term congressman -- whose district includes the eastern suburbs of Cleveland and Akron in a region near the Lake Erie shoreline known as Ohio's snowbelt -- never met formally with anyone at The Plain Dealer about Coryell. They added that he did not send an email or a letter of complaint, nor did he meet with The Plain Dealer's editor Susan Goldberg.

"Absolutely did not ask for anyone to be fired," is how one insider put it, and said the only conversation LaTourette had about Wide Open was with Larkin.

The insiders say that Larkin could back up their accounts, and that they expect and hope he will write something describing The Plain Dealer's handling of Coryell's ouster. They said it should help remove suspicions that the congressman pressured the newspaper.

One source said "there's nothing, nada. He didn't ask to have anybody fired. The only person he spoke to was Larkin and it was just a remark that the blogger had given money to his opponent, something like $200. I don't think that is out of bounds or pressure, to wonder what's up."

These insiders also say that LaTourette never spoke to Jean Dubail, the newspaper's online editor. They contend that anything Dubail told Coryell about the congressman would not have come from the congressman.

So far, LaTourette has not spoken publicly, nor has his office issued any kind of statement. Perhaps he never will. But if the story grows legs -- that a Cleveland area congressman was able to lean on his hometown newspaper and get someone fired -- he'll probably have to speak out and describe his version of what happened.

The Plain Dealer And Jeff Coryell: Ohio's Largest Newspaper Acted Properly

CLEVELAND (TDB) -- At a newspaper, few voices sound a dissonant note. It is supposed to be that way, because the news report it publishes isn't what the reporters and writers and columnists want it to be. It is what the editors determine it should be, what management seeks to make it and market, and Jeff Coryell could not single-handedly extend the perimeters of journalistic freedom.

How could he be privileged to say whatever he wanted to say, write whatever he wanted to write? He worked under the mantle of a large publication whose brand and audience he was glad to tap and access for money. So there were strings.

Newspapers and newsrooms are distinct from blogs, they are a composite of different personalities, tastes, worldviews and characters. They are the product of an older social order, rooted in a pre-technological time. They come from the industrial era and don't really see themselves operating under a set political doctrine. Mostly they reflect what's happening, they seldom lead, and they determinedly write about other folks admirable moments, and often about their worst times. They are products that serve the marketplace, and not places were there are absolutes. They survive in the gray area, a zone that is not welcoming to an activist.

There can be no singular style in that zone. For an activist, it is stifling, and can only offer an embittered departure. Jeff's blogging on the newspaper's portal was the prototype of a platform new to the publishing industry, and he went far beyond the comfort zone of a metro daily.

I think most mainstream journalists sense -- and some passionately believe --that there is something a bit shadowy about the blogs, that they lack a certain transparency. The newsrooms aren't prepared to turn their audiences over to such a group. They aren't ready to give them a seat at the Scribe bar.