Friday, December 21, 2018

SCPR SELECTION - "BEST" POLITICS NEWSPAPER IN OHIO: CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER

DATELINE:  OHCO RIOS, JAMAICA 
12/21/2018 

ONLINE:  CLEVELAND.COM
(see Best/Worst of Ohio's Legislators)


In the last few days, the cruise this blogger is on  was in Havana, Cuba.  Today, we are in Ocho Rios, Jamaica.

As a teenager, my first car was a 1953 Buick Special.

Looked a lot like this one, except, of course, for the gussied up factor.


Only kidding, but I have been searching the world over for my 1953 Buick.  Could this one be it?

Found it on the streets of downtown Havana, Cuba on Monday of this week.

There are scores and scores and scores of 1940s, 1950s vintage cars traversing the streets of Havana.  The engines have been replaced with diesels for economy of fuel use purposes and, the political side, the U.S. embargo on Cuba commercial transactions ever since Fidel Castro seized power from Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

The Obama administration negotiated a process of normalizing relations  (The Cuban Thaw) with Cuba beginning in December, 2014 but ended by the Trump administration effective November 9, 2017.

In order to have a "legal" trip to Cuba, this blogger was required to sign up for an participate in an educational tour set up by the cruise line Royal Caribbean.

Our tour guide intimated that most of the Cuban people long for a return to the process initiated by President Obama.

TODAY'S BLOG

It used to be that Ohio had several newspapers which did quality political reporting,

Unfortunately, one has not been The Canton Repository.

In the opinion of this blogger, only the Akron Beacon Journal when owned by Knight-Ridder newspaper publisher John S. Knight did the Canton/Akron have a first-rate newspaper that had top line political/government coverage.

Of late, with GateHouse buying up all of Stark County's newspapers including The Repository; it appears that Stark Countians get second-rate if not worse coverage of Stark County politics and government.

Current publisher James Porter has managed to completely undermine the credibility of The Rep with his "unholy" alliance with the Canton Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Professional Football Hall of Fame (note:  The Rep is in the midst of a contract with the PFHOF whereby The Rep is "the official newspaper of the PRHOF).

This blogger has been impressed recently with the remake that appears to be going on at the Cleveland Plain Dealer (online:  Cleveland.com) in terms of its comprehensiveness and thoroughness of  its coverage of Ohio (focused on northeast Ohio including Canton and Stark County) politics and governance.

Accordingly, The Report today dubs the Plain Dealer as "the best in Ohio" newspaper political and government reporting and opionating.

The Repository used to have a Statehouse reported by the name of Paul Kostyu.


Here is a LINK that will provide readers with a sampling of Kostyu's work while with The Rep.

Ever since Koystu's departure (2008?), political and government coverage of The Rep has taken a nosedive which, of course, provided The Stark County Political Report with an opportunity to fill the void which in all modesty this blogger thinks ther SCPR had done well.

A SCPR thank you! to the publishers and executive editors who have come and gone or who remain for providing the opening for a "one-person-blog" (absolutely independent of outside influence) that is not a profit-making effort to thrive.

For anyone who wants to be fully informed about Stark County politics and government, the SCPR and The Cleveland Plain Dealer (also, Cleveland.com) are must reads.

The Plain Dealer has a feature named The Capitol Letter which readers can get a "free" subscription to.

Simply google The Capitol Letter.

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