The Plain Dealer

• 1. Introduction

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  Winston Churchill reportedly declared that The Plain Dealer had "the best newspaper name of any in the world." He was talking about Cleveland's major newspaper, which had been publishing since January 1842. At its peak, the paper recorded a weekday circulation of 497,386 in May 1983. By May 2019, that figure had fallen to 94,838. Sunday print circulation would shrink to 37,000 copies by 2023. The story of how that contraction happened reaches into record-setting ownership transactions and editorial choices that drew national attention. What that name meant, and whether the paper lived up to it, would be put to the test repeatedly in the decades that followed.

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• 2. A Name's Philosophy

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  The Gray brothers explained their choice of name in writing when they launched the paper in 1842. After considering several other candidates, they wrote that "our democracy and modesty suggest the only name that befits the occasion, the PLAIN DEALER." The phrase carried a specific meaning: someone who interacts or does business straightforwardly and honestly. Their inspiration may have been a New York paper called The Plaindealer, published by William Leggett from 1836 until sometime between 1837 and 1839. That paper was described as Jacksonian in character, associated with the radical politics of its era.

  The name spread beyond Ohio. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it had traveled to newspapers in California, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Montana, Oregon, Wisconsin, Manitoba, and South Australia. At least three papers carry versions of the name today. The Indiana Plain Dealer traces part of its lineage to a predecessor that served Wabash, Indiana since 1859. The Ouray County Plaindealer of Colorado used a version of the name during 1888-1939 and again from 1969 onward. The Cresco Times Plain Dealer rounds out the trio in Iowa.

  The paper carrying the original title also quietly revised its own masthead over time. Its first edition in 1842 appeared under the simple caption "The Plain Dealer." For much of its history, the masthead also included the word "Cleveland." The city name disappeared at some point between 1965 and 1970. As for the city's own spelling: some sources credit The Cleveland Advertiser, the Plain Dealer's predecessor, with inadvertently dropping the "a" from founder Moses Cleaveland's name. The masthead reportedly had no room for the full spelling, creating the version that has been standard ever since. Whether that account is accurate remains disputed.

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• 3. The Newhouse Sale

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  The newspaper remained under Gray family control until Joseph William Gray's death in 1862. A series of editors ran the paper through the following decades. In 1885, a real estate investor named Liberty Emery Holden purchased The Plain Dealer. When Holden died in 1913, ownership passed into a trust for his heirs.

  The decisive transaction came on the 1st of March, 1967. The Holden trustees, including Holden's great-grandson Thomas Vail, sold the paper to Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr.'s newspaper chain for $54.2 million. That figure was the highest price ever paid for a U.S. newspaper at the time. Advance Publications Inc., a New York-based media company owned by Newhouse's heirs, continues to own the paper today.

  Thomas Vail had become editor and publisher in 1963 and remained in that role until 1992. During those years, the paper's parent company had also published the Cleveland News, which closed in 1960. The 1967 sale left The Plain Dealer as the dominant paper in a city whose other major daily, The Cleveland Press, would itself close in 1982.

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• 4. The Digital Fracture

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  In April 2013, Advance Publications announced the formation of a new company called the Northeast Ohio Media Group, known as NEOMG. The restructuring took effect in August, the same month The Plain Dealer reduced home delivery from seven days a week to four: Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Some observers read the move as a strategy to shift the business from print to digital delivery. Advance had already taken a similar path with the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

  NEOMG gained responsibility for Cleveland.com, the paper's digital counterpart first launched in 1997, as well as a group of smaller suburban papers. All advertising sales and marketing for The Plain Dealer were transferred to NEOMG. Cleveland.com's owners described it as "the premier news and information website in the state of Ohio." By 2019, it was drawing an average of 9.9 million users monthly.

  Critics saw the arrangement differently. Cleveland Scene, the alternative weekly, called it a "transparent union-busting schism scheme." The reasoning was direct: The Plain Dealer operated with a unionized staff, while Cleveland.com did not. Moving workers and tasks from the unionized print side to the non-union digital side would erode the union's bargaining power. In January 2016, NEOMG was renamed Advance Ohio, several weeks after a reorganization that included further layoffs.

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• 5. Union Local 1 Extinguished

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  In 1933, the union representing Plain Dealer employees became the first local chapter of the national union now called the NewsGuild. That founding gave it the designation Newspaper Guild Local 1. At its height, the membership numbered 340.

  In the early 2000s, the newsroom employed nearly 350 reporters and editors. The cuts came in waves. Between October and November 2006, about 64 employees accepted buyouts, reducing the newsroom from 372 to 308. In December 2008-50 more positions were eliminated; 27 through buyouts and 23 through termination. Employees agreed in 2009 to accept a 12% pay cut in exchange for a two-year promise against further layoffs.

  That promise did not hold. On the morning of Wednesday, the 31st of July, 2013, nearly one-third of the newsroom was eliminated through layoffs and resignations. Within 24 hours, the digital operation hired away thirteen of those who had survived the cuts. That left 97 people in the newsroom. The union filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, which it settled in August 2014.

  In March 2019, twelve editors and reporters were laid off and production was outsourced, cutting 24 more positions. Eight veteran reporters volunteered for buyouts to spare colleagues. Then in March 2020-22 more journalists were informed they would be laid off. Their departures were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, producing what observers described as a farewell run of vital reporting on the outbreak by the soon-to-depart staff.

  On the 10th of April, 2020, ten reporters asked to be laid off rather than accept reassignment to Ohio counties outside Cleveland. Their request was granted. By May, the last four union journalists were offered positions in the non-union Cleveland.com newsroom. They were investigative journalist John Caniglia, travel editor Susan Glaser, art critic Steven Litt, and sports columnist Terry Pluto. Under an agreement with the Northeast Ohio Newspaper Guild, the union was barred from organizing in that newsroom for one year. Tim Warsinskey had served as Plain Dealer editor for three months through the final layoffs. He announced he would join Advance Local as senior editor on the 1st of June, 2020.

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• 6. Controversies and Criticism

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  An editorial published on the 5th of November, 1864, posed a series of pointed questions about Abraham Lincoln's reelection. "Do you want four more years of war? Vote for Lincoln. Do you want the Constitution destroyed? Vote for Lincoln. Do you want the degraded Negros made your social and political equals? Vote for Lincoln." The paper's strong opposition to Lincoln appeared in print three days before his decisive reelection victory.

  In the summer of 2005, editor Douglas Clifton publicly acknowledged that The Plain Dealer was holding two stories he described as of "profound importance." His stated reason was legal exposure. Court orders in unrelated cases had required other journalists to reveal confidential sources, and the paper's lawyers opposed taking the same risk. Clifton told the national press that he and the reporters involved were willing to go to jail rather than reveal their sources. "Talking isn't an option and jail is too high a price to pay," he said. The controversy resolved a month later when Cleveland Scene published a similar story. The Plain Dealer then printed its own account, reporting that a federal corruption probe had targeted former Mayor Michael R. White.

  In October 2014, NEOMG hosted the only joint appearance of Ohio's three gubernatorial candidates. Incumbent Governor John Kasich largely ignored his Democratic opponent, Ed FitzGerald. Video of the debate was posted on Cleveland.com and then removed. When other sites reposted the footage, NEOMG sent legal threats. Chris Quinn, who dispatched those letters, declined all requests for comment. A column published on the morning after the election offered his explanation: he had failed to inform the campaigns that video would be posted, and felt that admitting his error publicly would put the candidates in an uncomfortable position.

  That same year, coverage of the shooting of Tamir Rice drew separate criticism. NEOMG published stories about the criminal backgrounds of Rice's parents. Quinn defended the reporting in a follow-up piece. He argued that understanding why a 12-year-old might carry what looked like a real gun in public could help prevent future encounters with police. Cleveland Scene called that framing "absent any context whatsoever." National outlets reported on the backlash.

  Donald Rosenberg had covered music for The Plain Dealer for sixteen years. On the 17th of September, 2008, editor Susan Goldberg told him he would no longer review Cleveland Orchestra performances. Rosenberg had written critically about conductor Franz Welser-Möst, though his reviews of Welser-Möst in opera settings had been positive. The paper's president and publisher, Terrance C. Z. Egger, sat on the orchestra's board. Rosenberg filed suit in December 2008, and a jury rejected his remaining claims in August 2009. Welser-Möst had previously earned the nickname "Frankly Worse than Most" from London critics during his tenure with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, a reputation that had preceded his arrival in Cleveland.

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• 7. Recognition and Legacy

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  In 1953, editorial cartoonist Edward D. Kuekes won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning for a work titled "Aftermath." More than fifty years later, in 2005, columnist Connie Schultz won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. The paper also earned nine Ohio Associated Press General Excellence Awards between 1994 and 2012. It won the Ohio Associated Press First Amendment Award in 2001 and again in 2004.

  In July 2010, the paper launched PolitiFact Ohio, a fact-checking website covering political issues in Ohio, produced in partnership with the Tampa Bay Times. Four years later, the partnership ended. The decision was attributed to a preference to keep all content at Cleveland.com rather than maintain a separate site.

  By 2026, The Plain Dealer was reported to be using artificial intelligence to write first drafts of articles.

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