CLEVELAND (TDB) -- Connie Schultz, the Pulitizer-winning newspaper columnist who is married to Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, was back in print today at The Plain Dealer. She delivered an emotionally moving yarn about her late father and the Big Snows that regularly hit Ashtabula on Lake Erie. No hint of a political tint in any of her words.
Schultz returned to writing after taking a leave-of-absence for the U.S. Senate campaign that put her husband in office. She also is working on a book about the Senate race that ended Republican Mike DeWine's run as an elected official.
Sooner or later, Schultz and Ohio's largest daily newspaper are going to run into flak from the right over one of her columns, which are a popular fixture in the feature section. Here is the comeback column and it is a gem. Schultz is the only spouse of a U.S. Senator who writes for a major American newspaper.
Showing posts with label Plain Dealer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Plain Dealer. Show all posts
Friday, January 26, 2007
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Breaking News!!! Plain Dealer Editor Is Leaving
CLEVELAND (TDB) -- The editor of Ohio's largest newspaper, Doug Clifton, moments ago told his surprised staff he would retire June 1 and move to Vermont where he has been restoring a 200-year-old home. Clifton, 63, came to the newspaper from the Miami Herald in 1999 and has been downplaying persistent rumors he was planning an exit from Ohio.
His departure after 37 years in the newspaper industry comes as many metro dailies -- including The Plain Dealer -- suffer from an industry downturn that has cost advertising and readership. Clifton told his staff today, "There is no more interesting time to be in the business than right now." The complete text of the letter announcing his decision is HERE.
A replacement is not on board. Clifton, whose bio is HERE, told the staff that he respected the PD's new publisher, Terry Egger, and was not leaving because of any friction. Recently, 64 newsroom staffers took generous buyouts. (Among them the author of this blog.) The newspaper is privately owned by Advance Publishing, which is controlled by the Newhouse family. Clifton said his departure was not due to disenchantment with anything that had happened at The Plain Dealer. The newspaper is the nation's 17th largest.
There is more information about Clifton as an editor HERE
His departure after 37 years in the newspaper industry comes as many metro dailies -- including The Plain Dealer -- suffer from an industry downturn that has cost advertising and readership. Clifton told his staff today, "There is no more interesting time to be in the business than right now." The complete text of the letter announcing his decision is HERE.
A replacement is not on board. Clifton, whose bio is HERE, told the staff that he respected the PD's new publisher, Terry Egger, and was not leaving because of any friction. Recently, 64 newsroom staffers took generous buyouts. (Among them the author of this blog.) The newspaper is privately owned by Advance Publishing, which is controlled by the Newhouse family. Clifton said his departure was not due to disenchantment with anything that had happened at The Plain Dealer. The newspaper is the nation's 17th largest.
There is more information about Clifton as an editor HERE
A Typo & Sen. Sherrod Brown's Pulitzer-Winning Spouse
CLEVELAND (TDB) -- Newspaper columnist Connie Schultz, whose husband Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown is just settling into his new gig at the Capital, is supposed to return to work at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland next week. And now the senator's wife knows how it feels to have her name incorrectly spelled in the press -- in this case The Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper with about 436,000 subscribers.
It came out "Shultz" not "Schultz" in an ad her newspaper printed about the imminent homecoming. Here's the tale by Michael K. McIntyre, who writes the weekly Tipoff column, about an alert reader who spotted the mistake: "She called Tipoff back after The Plain Dealer ran an ad Thursday trumpeting next week's return of columnist Connie Schultz. The ad used 'it's,' the contraction for 'it is' when it should have been 'its,' the possessive with no apostrophe, she said. She got us there. But even the teacher didn't catch the ad's most glaring error: 'Connie Shultz returns.' It's Schultz."
There is a link to Connie at the paper HERE, and an article in a journalism trade industry publication about what she's been up to recently HERE.
Connie and I exchanged e-mail this week and she said she was finishing her book about the campaign. She wanted permission to use a note I sent her and Plain Dealer editor Doug Clifton in December 2005, when Brown was running against Iraq War veteran Paul Hackett in the Demo Senate primary. Hackett eventually dropped out. But there was a lot of angst about bias by PD'ers before he quit. I was still with the Plain Dealer and upset that she was campaigning while working as a columnist. I thought there was a potential conflict of interest that opened myself and other PD reporters covering the race to the complaints of bias. I wondered if she, as a journalist, should mix politics and family.
Connie eventually left her job, taking a sabbatical for the election. A classy move on her part. But I wonder how The Plain Dealer will handle her role as a Democratic senator's wife and columnist in the future? To me, it looks like a minefield. Republicans will always be watching for signs of favoritism. Even the shortest sentences will be scrutinized and probably found to be full of Demo dogma. Maybe the paper should hire LYNNE CHENEY, the wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, to write a column from the other side. She's an author married to a politician.
It came out "Shultz" not "Schultz" in an ad her newspaper printed about the imminent homecoming. Here's the tale by Michael K. McIntyre, who writes the weekly Tipoff column, about an alert reader who spotted the mistake: "She called Tipoff back after The Plain Dealer ran an ad Thursday trumpeting next week's return of columnist Connie Schultz. The ad used 'it's,' the contraction for 'it is' when it should have been 'its,' the possessive with no apostrophe, she said. She got us there. But even the teacher didn't catch the ad's most glaring error: 'Connie Shultz returns.' It's Schultz."
There is a link to Connie at the paper HERE, and an article in a journalism trade industry publication about what she's been up to recently HERE.
Connie and I exchanged e-mail this week and she said she was finishing her book about the campaign. She wanted permission to use a note I sent her and Plain Dealer editor Doug Clifton in December 2005, when Brown was running against Iraq War veteran Paul Hackett in the Demo Senate primary. Hackett eventually dropped out. But there was a lot of angst about bias by PD'ers before he quit. I was still with the Plain Dealer and upset that she was campaigning while working as a columnist. I thought there was a potential conflict of interest that opened myself and other PD reporters covering the race to the complaints of bias. I wondered if she, as a journalist, should mix politics and family.
Connie eventually left her job, taking a sabbatical for the election. A classy move on her part. But I wonder how The Plain Dealer will handle her role as a Democratic senator's wife and columnist in the future? To me, it looks like a minefield. Republicans will always be watching for signs of favoritism. Even the shortest sentences will be scrutinized and probably found to be full of Demo dogma. Maybe the paper should hire LYNNE CHENEY, the wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, to write a column from the other side. She's an author married to a politician.
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