CLEVELAND — Last week, the Cleveland Plain Dealer announced that it had laid off 22 journalists, citing "industry changes."
It appears the significant shift at the publication didn't stop there.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the Plain Dealer News Guild revealed that the majority of its 14 remaining members in its newsroom have been informed they will no longer be covering Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Summit County or the state of Ohio. Instead, they will become a bureau covering five outlying counties: Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Medina and Portage.
"Lake, Geauga, Portage, Medina and Lorain counties have been underserved by media in this market for years despite making up a large percentage of The Plain Dealer’s subscription base," Editor Tim Warsinskey said in a statement to 3News. "The Plain Dealer, along with our sister company Cleveland.com, has an opportunity to change that with The Plain Dealer’s new focus on these five nearby counties. This broadening of our coverage area is especially important in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when all of our readers, regardless of where they live, deserve to know how the virus is affecting their local communities and how their local communities are responding."
Coverage of Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Summit County and the state of Ohio will now be provided by The Plain Dealer's sister newsroom, Cleveland.com. Cleveland.com has been providing content in the Plain Dealer for several years.
The changes announced by Warsinskey would take a number of longtime reporters off their established beats, including education, real estate and local investigations. Exceptions have been made for Steven Litt, who would continue as an arts and architecture critic, columnists Terry Pluto and Phillip Morris, as well as Susan Glaser, who would continue to cover regional travel.
"The move would bar most of the reporters from covering stories in Cuyahoga and Summit counties, as well as statewide issues, where they have developed expertise and have institutional knowledge," the News Guild said in a statement. "This latest announcement comes as the newsroom has worked ceaselessly in covering this unprecedented pandemic, putting aside their own personal family and financial situations to cover the news and tell the stories of health care workers and the community."
The Plain Dealer News Guild went on to say that it believes the moves were made to punish its reporters for belonging to a union. Cleveland.com, which like the Plan Dealer is owned by Advance Local, is a non-union newsroom.
"It’s clear that the company doesn’t value the expertise of its veteran reporters and it doesn’t think the community does either," the statement reads. "A move like this is incomprehensible and can only be interpreted as a way to punish people for belonging to a union. The company is choosing to switch reporters who have covered the city and county for decades to new beats and move their well-sourced beats to nonunion reporters at Cleveland.com."
Warsinskey says The Plain Dealer's move to expand its local journalism won't "take away from the important coverage of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County, including Cleveland City Hall, the court system and criminal justice, and public safety that Cleveland.com has been leading since 2013."
"One thing that will change with The Plain Dealer’s new reporting focus on the five surrounding counties is that more readers in more of Northeast Ohio will see more stories that are meaningful to them in The Plain Dealer and on cleveland.com. This next evolution of The Plain Dealer will continue to help us improve upon how we cover the issues that matter to more people for more of our community," Warsinskey adds.