The afternoon following a long ago Election Day, when I was a relatively new editor, a group of us were assembled for our news meeting in a glass-lined room we called the fishbowl, talking about the voting results.
Specifically, we were debating whether to publish all results from the just completed election in the Thursday edition of The Plain Dealer. Complete results were not available for the Wednesday edition, despite our pushing deadlines to the latest times we could accommodate and still get newspapers on doorsteps in the morning. We had most of the results for Wednesday’s papers, but elections board glitches left us with holes.
Complete elections results ate up a lot of pages, so publishing them again carried a cost, and most of the editors in the room favored skipping them for Thursday. After all, we were nearly complete Wednesday. What if we just published the ones we missed? Just as consensus was reached, though, the editor at the time stepped into the room and was told the plan. He sat down at the head of the long table, silently shaking his head.
We would publish the complete results, he said in a manner making clear he would brook no dissent.
He explained that elections are about the most important subject that newsrooms cover, firmly connecting our reporters and editors – the very institution of The Plain Dealer – to its readers and the community. He said people had no other easy way to get and keep election results, so it was our duty to provide them, no matter the cost.
A lot has changed since those days. Today, results are available in real time on state and county elections websites in formats far more convenient than the tiny type on newspaper pages. We publish them on our website, but we stopped putting them into printed editions when technology overtook us. (I do get complaints each year from people who yearn for the old days.)
What has not changed over the years is our newsrooms connection to our audience through elections. Our community relies us on for elections information. We can see it in how many people read the content we publish, and subscribers tell us in survey after survey that politics is the most important topic we cover. (Yes, that means ahead of the Browns!)
We write about the big races, track the money and tap into the main themes of the campaigns. In recent years, we’ve been determined not to let candidates use our platforms to spread messages of hate through their use of outrageous statements, but we do write about their controversies. And, as I wrote last week, our Editorial Board publishes a raft of endorsements, analyzing the pros and cons of candidates and issues on the ballot.
Unlike in yesteryear, today we have robust discussions about what’s on the ballot on our Today in Ohio weekday podcast. It’s an editors’ discussion of the day’s news, which often involves elections issues. It provides perspective you’ll find nowhere else.
What I wish we could do more of is hyperlocal election coverage – city councils and the like. We used to do that, with questionnaires we sent to all the candidates. We published the answers in thick magazine-style inserts in the newspaper. We moved those election guides online when technology became available, at no small expense, but ultimately found readership did not justify our time and dollars. I think artificial intelligence will offer new options for hyperlocal coverage in coming years. I hope so, anyway. As the saying goes, all politics is local.
Like the rest of the nation, our newsroom is heading into next week weary of this election season and ready for it to conclude. Our team will gather in the newsroom Tuesday night to monitor results together and crank out stories about the state and local news of the night. And in the days that follow, reporters will explore the results, providing the analysis and perspective you can get in Ohio only through our platforms.
Soon after, we’ll gear up anew. We have a Cleveland mayor’s election next year. And the governor’s race is in 2006. Both will be chugging almost as soon as the polls close on Tuesday. You’ll be counting on us to cover them thoroughly, and we will.
Of course, elections don’t mean anything without you and the action that is at the center of all of those stories, editorials, columns and conversations we publish. Please, if you haven’t done so yet, get out and vote.
I'm at cquinn@cleveland.com
Thanks for reading
