More Cutbacks Coming At Ohio's Largest Newspaper: Report Says Plain Dealer To Downsize By 20%

CLEVELAND (TDB) -- Roldo Bartimole broke the story, which my colleagues at The Plain Dealer pretty much confirmed during phone calls today. I was part of a large buyout in 2006, and received a generous package when I closed the newspaper's Cincinnati bureau after a two-decade run. Many of those who left in 2006 were close to retirement age or had long tenures at the newspaper that had built up their pensions. This time, things could be different. Several of the newsroom people I spoke to said there were no details offered ( no who, what, where, when and how) about the coming cuts, just that they would be significant and were driven by the sour financial fix of the newspaper industry. Papers have been losing print subscribers and advertisers as the MSM shrinks and consumers shift from ink and cellulose to flatscreens and cyberspace. "We have been told it's coming, but not when," said one reporter. Added another: "It's kind of sad here today, like in 2006 before the buyouts that you took. You know people will be leaving and you are wondering about your future. You know something is coming. But what? It's scary and sad at the same time."

Plain Dealer Reader Rep Ted Diadiun Runs Away From Blogfight: 'I'm Sorry I Bothered'

CLEVELAND (TDB) -- Jeff Jarvis at Buzzmachine deconstructs a Sunday column by Ted Diadiun, The Plain Dealer readers' rep. Diadiun contends the newspaper's experimental and now dead political blog Wide Open expired over ethical conflicts. When the newspaperman jumped into the Buzzmachine comments section trying to clarify what happened, Jarvis then gave
Diadiun even more heat as an apologist and cheap shot artist. Rather than slug it out and defend his position, Diadiun retreated from the online confrontation. His final words, "OK, I'm sorry I bothered."

Diadiun's response, unfortunately, comes off like this: If I don't get the last word, I quit. And that's disturbing, because newspapers and newspaper people need to adapt to the new media and forums, they need to enjoy the mixing it up and duking it out, the collision of divergent opinions. Diadiun's retreat to his corner before the bell resembles a cry of "no mas, no mas."

The link to Jeff Jarvis' blog is above in the first paragraph. The exhange of comments starts here:


Ted Diadiun Says: November 7th, 2007 at 7:41 pm
Jeff,
I’d like to clarify something, if I may:
You commented that “they (the Plain Dealer) see this as a story of control,” and offer as proof a quote from my column that, “in general, the bloggers did what he (Dubail) wanted them to do.”
But that statement didn’t mean the bloggers generally did Dubail’s bidding — it meant, as I noted earlier in a part of the column you didn’t quote, that the bloggers’ mission was to “opine daily about the political scene, play off each other and generate response from fellow online politics junkies. They got free rein on what they could write.” THAT’s what Dubail wanted them to do, and that’s what they did.
This was never an issue of control or political pressure. It was always about long-standing newspaper ethical concerns, about conflict of interest. The bloggers were never told they couldn’t comment about whatever political issues they wanted, never were censored. It was only after the newspaper discovered that one (and later, two) bloggers had contributed money to political campaigns that they were told they couldn’t write about those campaigns while being paid to write on a Plain Dealer blog.
That separation is so well established in the newspaper world that it usually goes without saying. But with this arrangement, those ground rules should have been discussed up front. Quite simply, it occurred to no one — not the editors and I will take on faith not the bloggers — that it would be a problem.
Everyone feels bad about this. I think that reasonable people can disagree, as you and I do, about whether the newspaper should have established different ethical guidelines for the Web site that would have acknowledged the bloggers “involvement and transparency,” as you put it.
That is a discussion worth having. I think it’s too bad that the discussion degenerated instead into conspiracy theories about political pressure and why The Plain Dealer “really” took the steps it did.
The Plain Dealer makes congressmen angry all the time, and publishes many stories they hate. To imagine that some complaints from a congressman could bully the newspaper into silencing a blogger is ludicrous.

Jeff Jarvis Says: November 7th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Sorry, Ted, but that’s utter crap, complete bull.
You say that your rules “go without saying.” Apparently so. You hired bloggers with clear opinions who are involved in their communities but then when you find that they contributed to campaigns — which in any other quarter would be considered a mark of civic participation — you accuse them of being unethical. That is grossly insulting. You are imposing YOUR standards on the perfectly normal and acceptable behavior of citizens whom you hired to be citizens. But you didn’t know what to do with it.
i found your column appalling. You can keep denying your meme about political pressure. But the bottom line here is that you revealed yourself to be utterly clueless about blogging and citizenship, You didn’t try to listen or learn. You imposed your worldview on them.
You embarrass me.

Ted Diadiun Says: November 7th, 2007 at 8:43 pm
Et tu, eh? I thought that here at least, we could have disagreement without personal attack.

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.

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.

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.

4 Ohio Bloggers Courted By Plain Dealer: Possible Deal In The Works

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Quiet talks are underway between four independent Ohio bloggers -- two on the left, and two on the right -- and The Plain Dealer, which is courting them to become featured commentators of a sort on its branded Website, Cleveland.com. The indys are popular, have followings in the state and outside, and could bring fresh and sometimes audacious perspectives to a traditionally stolid MSM outlet. There is no question that the newspaper came courting because of a need to somehow preserve its role as a key source of information in a media business environment that is rapidly changing.

According to whispers The Daily Bellwether has overheard, the bloggers who are in talks with the PeeDee are Writes Like She Talks, Ohio Daily, NixGuy, and Bizzyblog. An editor from the PeeDee, Jean Dubail, approached Jill Miller Zimon of Writes Like She Talks recently with a proposal that set in motion the discussions. Nothing has been structured yet, and Dubail reportedly plans to place something on the negotiating table this week with more details. Dubail was the editor who put together the newspaper's OPENERS blog, which went online in early 2006. This could be the first marriage between the MSM and the indy Ohiosphere, which is newly ascendant and barely three years old.

[UPDATE: 7:29 am -- Cincy Newsache intelligently discussed the difficult situation that metro daily newspapers are finding themselves in these days as they attempt to remain relevant for readers and advertisers while producing revenue streams for their owners. (I, too, wrote about the Harvard study last week, but Newsache did a superior job.) Newsache's report probably explains why the MSM is now looking at the indy bloggers -- people who were once dismissed as amateurs in newsrooms -- with unfeigned interest. Change is definitely in the wind.]

[UPDATE: 8:00 am -- Rasmussen Reports had a poll out last Thursday that said hardly anybody who is not a senior citizen gets their news from newspapers. For Americans under 40, they turn to the 'net.]

So far, there is no financial package, nor have any compensation arrangements been offered -- and there may never be. Instead, the bloggers might simply choose to be affiliated with Cleveland.com for prestige and leverage that would increase their influence as members of the digital commentariat. It also could give them a leg up as voices to pay attention to while the 2008 presidential race unfolds. As bloggers associated with Ohio's largest news gathering organization in a critical state, they would probably be viewed as players on the political stage.

For the PeeDee, the deal has other upsides. Newspaper Websites have not been growing, according to recent academic research. Indy bloggers would offer a new approach, especially since the four voices sought would be non-professional journalists who kicked off their careers by writing about things on their own agendas, things that interested themselves. They found audiences through their work and writing.

If the arrangement jells, it could be a tipping point in the Ohiosphere. Other MSM outlets may have to start looking for indy bloggers to compete, or to freshen themselves, or to join the paradigm shift, which is trending away from MSM outlets rooted in print. They are losing audience. The bloggers may be able to show them how to find an audience, or new audiences.

Bizzyblog and NixGuy are located in Cincinnati's suburbs and lean Republican and right. Write Like She Talks and Ohio Daily are Cleveland area blogs and lean left. The authors, Jill Miller Zimon and Jeff Coryell respectively, make no bones about hiding their politics. They proudly call themselves Democrats.

Anyhow, the match hasn't yet been made with the PeeDee. It could come to naught. Or the indy bloggers could soon be getting ready for their star turn on the MSM stage.

Did This Huddle At The PeeDee Cost GOP A U.S. Senate Seat?

CLEVELAND (TDB) -- Connie Schultz's recollection of a conversation with an editor at The Plain Dealer clearly demonstrates there are shoals under the surface when politics and journalism are mixed in the workplace with partisan ideology. It turns out that Connie, a Pulitzer-winning feature section columnist, was advised by her boss -- during a private workday meeting -- to urge that her husband, Sherrod Brown, enter the 2006 U.S. Senate race in Ohio. She quotes the editor saying of Brown, "this country needs him to run."

Brown is a Democrat. The Senate seat was held by two-term Republican Mike DeWine, who lost last November. Some could say the workplace conversation was a meeting that helped alter the state and nation's political course, a course that has tacked away from the GOP.

Connie recounts her talk with Stuart Warner, the editor who handled her columns, in her new book "...and His Lovely Wife," and describes how she was reluctant about having Brown run statewide. In effect, she portrayed herself as the main roadblock to her husband's candidacy.

She said she told Warner, a former Beacon Journal columnist who wrote "Warner's Corner" for years, that Sherrod was thinking about running. The editor then motioned to move the conversation to a more private setting, an empty meeting room. She quotes Warner:

"Sherrod should run. This country needs him to run, and he needs you by his side to do it. You'll be a tremendous asset. Look at what you believe in. Look who you've been fighting for your entire career. That's who he'll be running for, and they will vote for him and he can win. You can always come back to work if you want. Or you can move on to something bigger. You have nothing but options, but this is the right time, maybe the only time, for him to run."

Warner had endorsed a Brown candidacy, and Connie wrote in the book, "I was stunned, but I was also listening."

Doug Clifton, the paper's editor at the time, was worried about Connie's relationship with a statewide candidate. In December 2005 he wrote a column reassuring readers her marriage to Brown "will have no influence -- for or against -- our coverage of his campaign."

Of course, Clifton probably didn't know that the campaign had been partially fanned into life by a conversation in his own newsroom.

To Sen. Sherrod's Brown's Spouse: Here's The Story's Other Side

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- The Cleveland Plain Dealer's feature section columnist Connie Schultz sounds cranked off in this item published by the alt/weekly Cleveland Scene. Three journalists on the PeeDee's staff in 2006, including the author of this blog, are scored for "breaking the basic rules of journalism."

What pap. In my case, I sent an e-mail from the Plain Dealer's bureau in Cincinnati -- where I was based before retiring last December -- to then editor Doug Clifton. The e-mail went out in January or February 2006. I cc'ed Connie and noted that newspaper stories appearing in Southern Ohio in early 2006 were pointing out she was the wife of Sherrod Brown, who was on a trip around the state announcing his candidacy for the U.S. Senate. Some of those stories identified her as a journalist employed by the Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper.

Now, I was not aware of her marriage. I live in Cincinnati and learned of it around the time the campaigning started. Downstate, Sherrod and Connie were not widely known. I also heard suspicions/complaints/snark from Dems in the Paul Hackett camp, and from some Repubs who liked then-incumbent Sen. Mike DeWine, that the PD's coverage would be biased for Brown. After all, they said, his wife worked in the newsroom. She was a columnist. She had recently won a Pulitzer. And she could influence how the campaign was covered.

Hackett was still in the primary and things were growing bitter on the Democratic side. The Republicans expected a tough fight ahead for DeWine. And, the PD was in the bag.

I composed the e-mail to Clifton, the gist of it saying that things were tough for reporters in the field. They should not have to be under a cloud. Connie probably should get out of the way. She should be at her husband's side for the race. My view expressed in the note: Her activity as a columnist/candidate's wife looked like a conflict. I did not want to have to defend myself or any stories I wrote against allegations they were crafted to carry water for Sherrod Brown.

Connie reportedly met with Clifton as a result of my e-mail. She implies that I should have known about her marriage because it was reported in the paper. "Does he not read the paper he writes for?" she says she asked Clifton.

Yes, I read the paper. Somehow I missed her marriage announcement. Perhaps I was in West Virginia covering a flood that day. Or I was in court, or out trailing a candidate around, or wandering around Appalachian Ohio. Perhaps I was drilling down into the baseball box scores. Or reading Phillip Morris. I missed the announcement.

I must add that I was never an avid reader of the features section where Connie toils, a part of the paper that grizzled old newsroom hands like myself called the "toy department." That's a journo term predating myself or Connie, and comes from the era when the City Room was the heart of a newspaper and the "toy department" produced mostly fluff.

So, the "basic rule of journalism" that I broke was to express concern in writing to the editor in chief that the Plain Dealer's coverage of the Senate campaign was being perceived as less than even-handed, to contend that there should be no possible way for Brown's opponents to assert an insider controlled coverage and tilted it toward the insider's husband. To this day, I am convinced I did the right thing to urge that she be eased aside while the campaign unfolded.

That said, I will add this: She probably ought to find a job outside Ohio journalism now that Sherrod is a Senator. I think active newspapering and a political marriage don't mix, and there is an inference that no bright line exists to stop Connie from promoting her husband's agenda. She may not be doing any promotion -- but too many people will always think she is. And it damages the journalists who are dedicated to playing things straight.

Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown: Veep Cheney's Pic On Web Site

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Ohio's new Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown 's official Web site is now up and running. And guess whose photo graces the front page? Vice President Dick Cheney. CLICK HERE and see for yourself. Do it fast, because that scene probably won't be around for long.

While it's up, I can see Democrats horrified and Republicans hysterical with laughter.

Cheney, who is the Senate's presiding officer, appears to be administering the oath of office to Brown, presumably an action that fulfills one of the few constitutional functions of the vice presidency.

Brown must have selected the photo to prove to the folks back home he's really in office. O.K, Sen. Brown, you are sworn in. But did you have to prove it by regaling Ohioans with a picture of a Republican with a reputation for extreme partisanship, a man who has implied that Democrats like yourself would let terrorists attack our homeland with impunity?

For those who don't know, the woman standing between the veep and the senator is Connie Schultz, the Pulitizer-winning Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist who is married to the senator.

The vice president is a symbol of just about everything that Brown campaigned against. Cheney says the Iraq War is a success, and he advocated the invasion. He said the insurgents would be gone by now. He's been a pit bull attacking Democrats as weak, liberal and somewhat less that patriotic. Now he's got prime real estate on the online portal of Ohio's new Democratic senator. Got a give it to Dick Cheney -- he's always popping up from that undisclosed location.