The Plain Dealer (newspaper) |
The Plain Dealer is the major daily newspaper of Cleveland, Ohio. It also has the largest circulation of any Ohio newspaper, and is a top 20 newspaper for circulation in the United States. The Plain Dealer currently boasts more than 875,000 readers on weekdays and 1.1 million readers on Sunday. In fact, The Plain Dealers media market, Greater Cleveland, is ranked #1 in the country for Sunday newspaper readership percentage (75.4% of total adults) and #2 in daily newspaper readership percentage (62.6% of total adults), second only to New York City in the weekday editions.
=History=
The newspaper was established in 1842, less then 50 years after Moses Cleaveland landed on the banks of the Cuyahoga River in the The Flats, and is currently owned by Advance Publications (Newhouse Newspapers). The Plain Dealer is under the direction of Alex Machaskee, who serves as President and Publisher, Robert M. Long, Executive Vice President, as well as Douglas C. Clifton, who is the current Editor. The paper employs over 1,600 people. The paper is referred to in short by Clevelanders as the P.D. , as well as the PeeDee (the latter usually used in a derogatory manner). In a controversial move, The Plain Dealer published photographs of dead Vietnamese people villagers killed during the My Lai Massacre in 1969 during the Vietnam War. The Plain Dealer and its owner, S. I. Newhouse, were implicated in the demise of the Cleveland Press in 1982. It was widely suspected at the time that Newhouse had paid off the owner of the Press to fold his competing newspaper, thus giving the PD monopoly control over the Cleveland print newspaper market. In 2005, Connie Schultz won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. It was the first Pulitzer for The Plain Dealer since 1953. In addition to the Pulitzer, recent awards have included an 2003 Editor of the Year honor for Doug Clifton, given by Editor and Publisher Magazine, the industry newsletter. E&P cited Clifton s quick and extremely successful efforts to energize The Plain Dealer s reporters and newsroom, which had been languishing for years beforehand.
=Pricing, distribution, circulation=
The daily paper costs 50 cents at the newsstand, 40 cents for home delivery, and the Sunday edition is $1.50 for newsstand or home delivery. These prices only apply to The Plain Dealers home delivery area, which are the Northeast Ohio counties of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Lake County, Ohio, Geauga County, Ohio, Portage County, Ohio, Erie County, Ohio, Ottawa County, Ohio, Summit County, Ohio, Ashtabula County, Ohio, Medina County, Ohio and Lorain County, Ohio. The Plain Dealer is however, available all over the state at the newsstand, including the state capital, Columbus, Ohio, and anywhere in the US or world via US mail service. The Plain Dealer currently has a total circulation of 356,286 on weekdays and 476,424 on Sunday.
=Bureaus=
The Plain Dealer operates a variety of news bureaus. In addition to its local metro reporters and columnists, The Plain Dealer operates a bureau in Columbus, at the capital, that focuses on state-wide news and reporting. The PD also operates a Washington, D.C. bureau that reports on national news and events, focusing on the actions of and stories relating to the Ohio delegation to the House of Representatives and Senate.
=Major sections=
The Plain Dealer is organized into several major sections, depending on the day of the week. The Sunday edition is, as with any major US daily newspaper, the largest edition of the week.
Major sections printed on most editions include:
==All editions==
;News : Includes Front Page, International, and National News (including Washington DC). ;Metro : Local news for Cleveland and Northeast Ohio, as well as Forum, the Dealer s opinion and letters to the editor section. ;Sports : Cleveland and National Sports News and Commentary. ;Arts & Life : Arts, Entertainment and Living Section. ;Business : Local and national business news, stocks, bonds. ;Classifieds : Home, auto, jobs, other classified advertising.
In addition to these sections, various work week editions include special sections such as Golf Monday, BusinessMonday, High School Sports Preview, and other sections.
==Plain Dealer Sunday==
Sunday editions include, in addition to the major sections above: ;Big College Sunday : a recap of Ohio State and college football (in season). ;Driving : special section on driving and automobile reviews. ;Travel : detailing travel tips. ;pdQ : lighter news section aimed at younger crowd. ;Homes : detailing homes in the area and housing trends. ;Sunday Arts : expanded arts section. ;Sunday Magazine: special insert magazine with special interest content.
=Style=
The Plain Dealer employs a modern styling of a daily newspaper, and the PD itself has undergone dramatic stylistic changes in the past few years to update the print edition s look. The sunday edition is known as Plain Dealer Sunday while weekday editions are The Plain Dealer , sunday is also more colorful and includes many one time special sections with full page graphics, pictures, and other content. Weekday and Sunday editions regularly feature front pages with content boxes on the upper part of the page detailing news inside.
=Employees=
==Executive staff and editors==
==Columnists==
= Held stories controversy=
The Plain Dealer made national headlines in the summer of 2005 when editor Douglas Clifton announced that the newspaper was withholding two stories of profound importance after Judith Miller (journalist) of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time (magazine) were ordered to reveal confidential sources who had provided information on Valerie Plame being a Central Intelligence Agency operative. 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 and a violation of the trust between reporter and said informants. Clifton was vilified in the news media as having no backbone and he himself even 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. The controversy ended when the Cleveland Scene , an alternative weekly Cleveland newspaper, published a similar story, thus allowing The Plain Dealer to print the withheld story. The story turned out to be on former List of mayors of Cleveland, Ohio Michael White (politician) s federal corruption probe, which was leaked to the press by an attorney on the case. The second withheld story has yet to be revealed.
=Cleveland.com=
The Plain Dealer is the major news contributor to Cleveland.com, the regional news, event, and communication web portal run by Advance Internet. The paper does not operate its own editorial website, but does run a separate website for the business side of the newspaper, including advertising. Cleveland.com also features news from WKYC-TV, the local NBC affiliate, and the Sun Newspapers , which are a group of smaller, weekly, more suburban-oriented newspapers in the Greater Cleveland metro area also owned by Advance Publications. The Sun Newspapers are the largest chain of paid weekly newspapers in the country.
=Trivia=
*The paper was parodied as the Sto Plains Dealer in Going Postal by Terry Pratchett. *Janet uses The Plain Dealer to cover her head in the rain in The Rocky Horror Picture Show .
=External links=
*[http://www.cleveland.com/plaindealer/ The Plain Dealer on Cleveland.Com (Editorial Site)] *[http://www.plaindealer.com/ Cleveland Plain Dealer (Business Site)]|
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