Our newsroom normally enters a new year with significant investigative and enterprise projects on the calendar, but when Donald Trump won the November election, we opted to keep our reporters free of such assignments. Trump, after all, campaigned on a plan to remake America at many levels. We decided that fully exploring how each of Trump’s initiatives might impact Ohio and Northeast Ohio would be the most valuable journalism we could provide to the community, at least as 2025 dawned. The strategy already has proven out, less than two weeks into the new administration. Trump blazed into office with a flurry of executive orders and policies that could have huge ramifications on the way of life here, and our reporters already are sprinting to keep up. The best example I can offer from Trump’s opening weeks was the release of a two-page memo late Tuesday announcing a temporary halt on federal payments except to individuals, such as people receiving Social Security disbursements. The order potentially affected billions of dollars for Ohio agencies, companies, governments, colleges and others, as well as uncountable jobs. By 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, we had a plan that ultimately involved 10 reporters and six editors, examining every aspect of the order we could handle. By day’s end we published five stories to lay out how the order might play out in our region and state. Not every newsroom can do this. We can because of the support we receive from people who subscribe to The Plain Dealer or cleveland.com. Our newsroom is thriving because people see value in what we do and support it, resulting in our ability to perform as we did Wednesday. I should point out that I am talking about news stories. This was not opinion content, passing judgment on what Trump did. It was a set of stories dispassionately explaining what it all might mean. You will find people complaining about Trump’s process in the stories. You will find people supporting the president’s effort to control spending. You won’t find bias from our reporters. As most know, within 24 hours the issue was dead, at least for a while. A judge blocked the order from taking effect, and the Trump administration then withdrew it. Our readers, however, understand what it could have meant. The episode was a terrific lesson about how what happens in Washington D.C. makes a big difference at the local level. Here are the stories our team produced. Sabrina Eaton wrote the overarching story, with assists from Julie Washington, Kaitlin Durbin, Rich Exner, Megan Sims, Anna Staver and Jeremy Pelzer. It contained the news, the current status and comments from a wide array of people and agencies that could have been crippled, at least temporarily, and were confused by the lack of detail offered by the Trump administration. We’re talking about people in education and healthcare and such vital agencies at the sewer district, our public housing agency and our regional planning agency. Anna and Jeremy wrote a story about how the order might or might not impact Ohio’s budget, which gets roughly a third of its money from the federal government. Gov. Mike DeWine is days from introducing the next two-year budget, so this is timely. Sean McDonnell published a piece about the threat to many millions of dollars that have been awarded to Cleveland for its lakefront development and explained why that project would be imperiled by the loss of the money. Pete Krouse wrote about a bunch of green energy projects in Northeast Ohio that benefit from federal dollars, including groundbreaking efforts by the port to significantly reduce reliance on fossil fuels. Pete showed how the spending halt could harm that progress. Adam Ferrise wrote a story about federal grants for law enforcement agencies, including equipment and targeted efforts for specific crimes. While crime overall has been dropping for decades, we’ve had upsurges in violence crimes by youths who have easy access to guns. Efforts to curb the violence would be jeopardized by a loss of the money. We also talked about each of these aspects in an extended conversation on our Today in Ohio podcast discussion and analysis of the news, adding even more perspective. All that for one 2-page order that was quickly rescinded, but that’s what we think our best role is to start 2025. Trump is unlike previous presidents in that he is moving to radically alter government. His actions are not surprising, in that he campaigned on them, but how his actions transform life on the local level will be surprising. Our province is state and local news, so we will continue to keep our team at the ready to blanket cover ramifications of this president’s decisions. Separately, following up on a column from two weeks ago about the new platform for the digital replica on The Plain Dealer: We expect as early as this week to have the headings back in place, allowing you to click a button and instantly be transported to the Sports, Forum, Diversions or other sections. And we will, eventually, restore the ability to download a .pdf of the entire newspaper. Other improvements you requested also are in the works. I’m at [email protected] Thanks for reading. | 