Goldberg keeps optimistic eye on Plain Dealer, Cleveland future

By Arooj Ashraf, La Prensa Correspondent

Susan Goldberg, the Plain Dealer’s first woman editor, is making an impression on the largest newspaper serving Northern Ohio. “We are a regional newspaper,” she told guests at the City Club of Cleveland on Friday Dec. 7, 2007.

Expect to see more local in-depth, investigative coverage of Cleveland and its surrounding counties, she said. Also look for improvements at the Website affiliate www.Cleveland.com.

Most of all, expect the Plain Dealer staff to reflect the ethnic diversity of the community.

Goldberg, a Michigan native, said she is shocked at the segregation and hate that still poisons Cleveland and said the Plain Dealers must seek out stories that create bridges of understanding. Referencing her former home in Silicone Valley, San Jose California, Goldberg said Cleveland must think and act globally. “And we must stop tolerating the haters because they will bring us all down,” she said.

An audience member questioned how the Plain Dealer is helping Clevelanders think globally when the international section is shrinking to blurbs. International information is available in other places, she told him. The Plain Dealer needs to shine a spotlight on the issues in our own backyard she said.

Goldberg expressed the irritation many newcomers to the region feel, “This is a place that tends to marinate in its disappointments,” she said. Through the newspaper, she wants Cleveland natives to quit wallowing in the past and see the opportunities and invigorating developments taking place in the region.

She said the newspaper will never compromising the watchdog function it performs and doesn’t need to cover everything through rosy tainted glasses. She indicated the Plain Dealer business section will be doing more to highlight the medical and health industry that is flourishing.

“I like to provide a variety of stories on front page, newspapers are living things and everyday we need to reflect what’s going on,” she said. Goldberg’s evolving FrontPage look doesn’t sit well with Anastasia Pantsios, Associate Editor of the Cleveland Free Times, who is disappointed by sports coverage seeping onto the front pages. She wished Goldberg had addressed more time to news gathering techniques rather than the business model.
 

Goldberg shared her experiences as an editor at San Jose Mercury News, the paradigm shift in the newspaper industry and the future of Cleveland. The most profound lesson she has brought from her experience in Silicone Valley, “Innovate or die.”

She said the internet boom has caught up with the most skeptical journalists who stubbornly clung to their traditional methods of news and reporting. Goldberg said ethics and values can be conveyed through any medium. She predicted Plain Dealer staff will be trained in the best technology and offer relevant information packaged differently in print and online. 

Goldberg said the purpose of newspapers has shifted from providing news to in-depth analysis, and help readers understand and not just react to the effects of news. She said newspapers are the most cited sources and their content is picked up, distorted by broadcasters, radio talk shows, and more increasingly by bloggers.

Goldberg has a bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University and serves as a co-chair of the Medill School of Journalism’s Board of Visitors at Northwestern University and is on the board of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. She worked at USA Today as deputy managing editor of the News, Life and Enterprise section, as editor at the Detroit Free Press and began her career as a reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. To listen to a complete broadcast of Goldberg’s speech visit the City Club of Cleveland website: www.cityclub.org.