Read Perspective from Roldo Bartimole

Plain Dealer editor Doug Clifton’s eight-year tenure here was more a coast than a ride. He’s off to Vermont.

I say coasting because my impression is he decided maybe shortly after he arrived that his new team was deficient. Thus, why try?

Despite some high hopes and some achievements, the Clifton years didn’t much change the culture of The Plain Dealer or its value to the community.

“His heart wasn’t in it anymore,” said a veteran reporter. He suggested that when Clifton came and saw the quality of the staff, which this reporter loosely described as “a bunch clowns,” he lost interest.

“He didn’t respect us,” another reporter labeled Clifton’s attitude toward staff. SPJ Cleveland Lifetime Achievement Award to Doug Clifton He said Clifton didn’t trust his reporters to do important tasks. Clifton, he feels, underestimated them.

“It bothered us in subtle ways,” he said. He noted that Clifton acted as if he did not have the troops skilled enough for challenging tasks.

Clifton’s reputation nationally, however, earned him a 2003 award of Editor of the Year from Editor & Publisher for his earnest battle to keep public information public. He can also take some credit for the PD finally winning a Pulitzer Prize, earned by columnist Connie Schultz in 2005.

This year, the Cleveland chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists named him recipient of its Lifetime Achievement Award.

One might credit Clifton with the PD series Quiet Crisis, which probably ended up irritating many Clevelanders as too negative. The Quiet Crisis was an effort of public journalism, a faded movement that put newspapers in the position of trying to solve community problems, rather than its traditional role as a watchdog.

Clifton’s tenure was marred some by the paper’s failure to nominate a Presidential choice in 2004. His publisher overruled Clifton’s editorial board, which wanted John Kerry. Clifton and the PD earned embarrassing national notice for the failure.

Clifton also wrote a column in 1999 – again to his and the PD’s embarrassment nationally. Clifton reported that the paper would withholding two investigative stories “of profound importance” to the community. Clifton later said that the decision was the “dumbest thing I ever did.” The Scene, an alternative newspaper, scooped the PD and ran one of the exposes. This forced Clifton to follow the alternative’s lead.

Clifton did seem to trust columnists. They were allowed free reign. Dick Feagler has been strongly anti-war while Kevin O’Brien remains an ultra-right opinion page writer. He kept Elizabeth Sullivan writing about international matters. It appears, however, her travel budget has been eliminated. Under Clifton, the Sunday Forum pages have been severely short-changed by inclusion of two book pages, better placed elsewhere.

In May of 1999, when Clifton came here, I wrote a “Letter to Clifton” in my Point of View newsletter. It noted the pattern set in the past 35 years that would test him.

“The roster of the Plain Dealer editors resembles a memorial list of the ‘dead.’ Between the early 1970s and the late 1980s, the paper had 12 city editors. Top editors, not as easily dumped, still had a high casualty rate. With each death came the promise of greatness from the publisher. ‘I’ve got the best management team I’ve ever had. We’re going to be better than ever.’ That was Tom Vail in 1973. ‘Our goal is to make the Plain Dealer one of the top papers in the country and I think he is the kind of person who will help us to do the job.’ Again, Vail in 1984, when he named Bill Woestendiek to replace Dave Hopcraft. Woestendiek, hired by Vail, was fired by (Alex) Machaskee as too liberal. ‘Machaskee notified me that I was to take early retirement…’ was the way Woestendiek explained his ‘retirement.’ He was replaced by Thom Greer, totally out of his depth. David Hall was next replacement but he fell out of favor too.”

The letter was a warning to Clifton that he had to watch out for Machaskee. Clifton outlasted Machaskee who was pushed out in 2006.

I believe Clifton allied himself early in his tenure with Editorial Page Editor Brent Larkin. Larkin is very knowledgeable about Cleveland, particularly its political people and Clifton leaned on Larkin for support in his new venue. Larkin, as editorial page boss, held enviable journalistic power by access to the opinion pages of the PD. Political and civic leaders know this and go to him when they need access or cover.

Whether Clifton became a compliant accomplice to Larkin or simply relied heavily upon him, I can’t say. However, the relationship had to be close.

Larkin presented an early test of the relationship. An anonymous letter to the PD revealed that Larkin had taken a trip to the Major League baseball 1999 All Star game in New York in a private jet owned Dick Jacobs. Jacobs owned the Indians at the time and was a politically connected developer.

What made this trip more onerous was a little skit put on by Jacobs. He used a large handkerchief over his face, playing a Ku Klux Klansman on the plane trip. (A Klan demonstration here at the time was big news. The skit implied criticism of Mayor Michael White’s handling of the Klan.)

Larkin, of course, didn’t report the incident or his guest status on the private jet. Nevertheless, the letter reached a PD columnist who wanted to write about it. Clifton already had made openness an issue with Mayor White.

Now, Clifton faced similar pressure. How open was he? Clifton also had to consider that other media might obtain the information. Many suspected Mayor White supplied the information to embarrass Larkin and the PD.

Clifton should have fired Larkin for this indiscretion. He didn’t. Clifton did say someone of Larkin’s editorial position shouldn’t take “freebies.” He rightly decided to publish the Larkin lapse but Clifton managed the content, position and length of the story, a sign of loyalty to Larkin.

Clifton also forgave Larkin. He rationalized the misstep as a “tough balancing act” when an editorial employee has a previous friendship with a public figure. Yes, especially when he’s worth a few hundred million dollars.

I noted in the letter to Clifton that The Plain Dealer most of all needed some bite... “It’s been a kissy ass, corporate protecting, see no, tell no evil, bite your tongue, tiresome, bad read newspaper for much too long.”

While there have been worthwhile exposes in the PD during Clifton’s tenure, he hasn’t been vigorous with criticism of Cleveland’s powerful people or institutions and too easily goes along with their wishes.

If there is one matter that stands out in Clifton’s era it was the change in treatment of Mayor White. The PD had handled White with tender care. After all, White had done everything the paper and business community wanted for years, project after project.

However, there was not much more he could do for them. Clifton put two aggressive and competent reporters at City Hall. Chris Quinn and Mark Vosburgh rightly blitzed White without mercy. Quinn even made the mayor’s medical problems an object for mockery. He described a surgical procedure - “in graphic detail,” according to one reporter - as surgery for “hammertoes.” The story had the odor of simply trying to embarrass White.

The surge against White worked. The mayor chose to retire. I believe the aggressiveness of the PD forced White to avoid a re-run in 2001.

That was clearly the high point of Clifton’s tenure.

The low point had to be the Joel Rose episode. Rose had been a veteran television and radio personality here. He was known for blistering wit.

The PD’s handling of the Rose story received sharp criticism. Editor & Publisher sent a couple who spent some three months examining the paper’s treatment of the story. Their piece covered nine pages in the December 18, 2000 issue. It started...

“Using anonymous sources, ‘The Plain Dealer’ ran a Page One story naming the local TV and radio celebrity as a suspect in a sexual stalking case. Rose committed suicide the morning the article appeared. Was the paper too quick to name the widely known broadcasting personality? Many in Cleveland think so.”

The PD had run a story based on a confidential confirmation from County Prosecutor Bill Mason’s office that Rose was under investigation. The case involved someone who sent sexually suggestive mailings, Joel Rose and The Plain Dealer including lingerie, to a number of women.

Rose had not been formally charged. The PD, however, went with the story. Later, it was found that DNA on postal stamps of the mailings couldn’t be tied to Rose. Further, his typewriter didn’t match the type used in the mailings.

It was too late, however. Rose received the PD on the morning of August 3, 2002 with the story about him on the cover. He was later found dead. He had shot himself once in the temple.

David Morton wrote a very detailed summation of the Rose case in the Free Times on April 4-10, 2001. (An exam of the PD newspaper index at the Cleveland Public Library site shows no subsequent articles from the PD on this issue. Apparently, the PD simply chose to drop the story.) Morton wrote...

“It’s not just the lack of hard evidence connecting Rose to the crime. The hard evidence that exists points away from him; not just the DNA – another male’s DNA was found on the packages – but his typewriter as well, since it was determined it wasn’t used to type the offending notes found in the mailings. Yet, (Bill) Mason’s office keeps delaying a press conference about the case, presumably out of fear of showing an empty hand.

“Procrastination serves both the prosecutors and the Plain Dealer well,” Morton wrote in his detailed account.

In a testy email to Merle Pollis, a close colleague and friend of Rose, Clifton revealed his coarse side. He ignored a friend’s grieving. People think Clifton is personally thin-skinned. He obviously he took offense with Polis' words.

“I know how I would react to a false accusation of that sort. It would not have been to blow my brains out. On the contrary, it would have been to LOUDLY and vigorously deny it and to sue the newspaper for libel and the police for malicious prosecution. Joel Rose, when asked about the case, said, ‘I couldn’t comment on that,’ hardly a ringing denial,” Clifton wrote in response to Pollis. Pollis later said that the PD really “pulled the trigger."

The signs pointed at Rose but they would have to be considered circumstantial. He had had a sexually oriented website. Rose had affairs and had contact with one principal, a woman who received sexually oriented objects in the mail. Other of the women could also be connected to Rose.

Gerry Gold, prominent criminal lawyer, told Rose not to speak to a PD reporter. Gold said he would do the talking. Gold did speak to the reporter and thought he had convinced her that the story should not be used without formal charges.

As the Editor & Publisher story noted, “He was wrong.”

The article appeared the next day.

The Rose story seemingly has disappeared from Clifton’s Cleveland resume. It doesn’t get attention in the media’s treatment of his stay here as it ends.

Now, the PD has named a new editor, Susan Goldberg. She will be the first female editor. Goldberg was hired from the recently twice-sold San Jose Mercury News. She was executive editor and a vice president.

Though San Jose is the 10th largest city with a 2003 Census Bureau listed population of 894,942, the newspaper has more than 100,000 fewer readers than the PD.

The population of the two cities differs greatly. For instance, African-Americans represent only 3.5% of the city’s population while 30% are Hispanic and nearly 27% Asian.

In an interview on the PD’s website, Goldberg sounded very well spoken and direct. She faces a period of learning the community but seems a fast learner. The problem will be from whom she will take advice.

One troubling sign is that both Goldberg and her superior, publisher Terrance Egger, recently of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, recently have managed newspapers that were sold. One possibly good aspect of this team is that for the first time The Plain Dealer has two outsiders, not connected to the power structure here.

One hopes that they remain somewhat aloof from those powers.

Maybe here is the place to end with some words from the band “The Who,” as recently recited to me, and hope that they are not prophetic...

"Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss. We won’t be fooled again."

Editor's Tip: Many old issues of Roldo's Point of View newsletter are available at the Bookstore on West 25th Street, a short walk from the Westside Market. The newsletters represent a view of Cleveland politics and media during the years 1968 to 2000... and in Roldo's words, "make for some interesting rummaging."