The aim of this column is to explain why we chose not to report Cleveland Heights Mayor Kahlil Seren’s baseless claims of racism in response to serious questions about his conduct involving a surreptitiously placed laptop, but I’ll get there in a most roundabout way. The broader point is this: We no longer use our platforms to amplify meaningless or manipulative statements from politicians. That philosophy has been developing in our newsroom for more than two decades. As a reporter, I was always frustrated by election guides. We’d assemble a list of questions, send them to every candidate, and then print whatever they wrote—no matter how evasive or off-topic. Candidates realized they could say whatever they wanted, avoiding our questions entirely, and use our reach to spread it. In 2001, when my colleague Mark Vosburgh and I were covering City Hall, we changed that. For that year’s City Council and mayoral races, we posed pointed, substantive questions and—with our editor’s support—refused to publish non-answers. If a candidate dodged, we simply noted they declined to respond. Some of them hated it. They did everything they could to seem like they were answering, but if they didn’t provide substance, we told them no dice. One mayoral candidate was furious, but we held firm, and he was marked repeatedly with “declined to answer.” A few years later, Mark and I were low-level editors and were assigned to oversee the entire election guide, for all races on the ballot that year. We repeated the approach, insisting reporters collect on-point answers or list candidates as having declined. No one was able to bloviate. Fast-forward to today. Politicians have become increasingly sinister in using journalism’s standard practices against us. When asked for comment, many now respond with hate-filled, demonstrably false statements, knowing we traditionally feel obligated to publish them. In essence, they’ve weaponized journalism’s commitment to balance and fairness. A few years ago, we changed our policy. We decided we would no longer allow politicians to use our platforms to spread false, hateful, or dangerous rhetoric. Our job is to pursue the truth—not to give oxygen to bad-faith actors. Which brings us to Cleveland Heights Mayor Kahlil Seren. He’s been facing intense scrutiny for months and is now the subject of a serious recall effort. We’ve reported a series of controversies surrounding him. He has refused to address them directly, instead claiming he's being targeted because he's Black. I guess he thinks he will silence people who fear being labeled racist, but I have seen no sign of that being effective. On social media, residents have condemned his claims as a reprehensible attempt at deflection. The latest controversy is especially troubling. Seren was caught on security footage sneaking into the Cleveland Heights Law Department during off-hours—twice—even though he told City Council he had no access to the office. Since we broke the story, he has refused to say why he was there. Last week we broke another story, that the police chief had asked for a criminal investigation into why the mayor’s laptop had been placed surreptitiously in the Law Department around the same time he was sneaking in. The computer was open with its screen locked, and it was there at the very time city employees were being interviewed there about claims Seren’s wife had created a hostile work environment in City Hall. Was Seren secretly recording the interviews? Ohio law prohibits people from recording conversations they are not a part of. Seren says he was not trying to record anyone, but he refuses to explain why his laptop was hidden there for several days. Seren released a statement in response to our story, without addressing specifics. it repeated claims of racism, without evidence. And then, this week, he appeared before residents in a church, purportedly to address the controversies. Again, he refused to address the specifics. Despite going on for more than two hours, he refused to say why he was sneaking into the Law Department and why his laptop was hidden there, open and plugged in with the screen locked. We didn’t report his latest racism accusations. We didn’t report them last week, either. Why? Because he offered no evidence. The claims are a distraction—an attempt to mislead the public and avoid accountability. The controversies revolving around him are real, yet he refuses to address them. He keeps attempting misdirection with his false claims of racism so that residents won’t notice his refusals to answer. I keep writing each week how quickly journalism is changing. Artificial intelligence is one force. Another is the growing need to defend truth against officials who exploit traditional practices. One strategy is declining to publish nonsense from those in power. just like my colleague Mark and I did with the election guides. And it’s what we did here. One final note: During his church meeting, Seren finally agreed to take questions from reporters—but insisted they come sit beside him in a fireside-chat style chair. Our reporter Cory Shaffer played along. But when he asked his first question, Seren turned to the remaining 15 or so residents and said something like, “See what I have to put up with?” Yes, Mayor. You have to put up with journalists asking questions about your suspicious conduct. That’s called accountability. And it’s not going away. I’m at cquinn@cleveland.com Thanks for reading. | 