Our town hall in May was one of our highlights for the first half of 2025. Readers had plenty of thoughts and questions, and Ccleveland.com/The Plain Dealer reporters answered a bunch at the Cuyahoga Public Library, Parma Snow branch.

We’ve reached the midpoint of 2025, when we take stock of what we’ve been up to and refocus where we’re headed, and report it all to you.

Readers of this column will not be surprised to hear the biggest initiative of the year so far has been experiments with artificial intelligence. We believe we can use AI as a tool to help reporters expand our content significantly. We’re not talking about turning over the work to AI. As a tool, though, it can make us more efficient. Every AI-generated draft is carefully checked and shaped by our journalists, so accuracy and fairness remain paramount. We also believe that as others use AI to pollute platforms with phony news, people will rely on our trusted brand more than ever for accurate, balanced news.

We started the year with a determination to cover how policies in the second Donald Trump administration impact our state and region, and we’ve done that with hundreds of stories to date. Trump has slowed some in announcing new policies and directives, but we continue to see ramifications from those he announced early. The big budget bill he pressed Congress for will affect many in Ohio in the near and distant future, and we will continue to chronicle those impacts.

We knew as the year dawned that the machinations of the next two-year Ohio budget would keep us busy, but I don’t think anyone could have predicted how dirty the dealing would be. In both the House and Senate, secrecy prevailed as lawmakers violated the Ohio constitution single-subject rule to insert all sorts of damaging legislation into the budget without notice or hearings. Our Statehouse team has worked at a breakneck pace for months to bring you the news of this terrible legislative behavior. As the blatantly illegal laws they inserted into the budget go into effect, we’ll be there to show you the results.

Our signature project of 2024 about the Cuyahoga County juvenile justice system continues to resonate in 2025, largely because reporter Kaitlin Durbin continues to report on it. We’ve reached a dangerous point where some want to give up on children who commit violence and lock them away as adults for long periods, but our reporting has clearly shown we are failing these children. We will continue to report on that trend, along with the efforts to do a better of helping children in trouble thrive.

Our sports teams have kept us running, starting with Ohio State University’s improbable comeback from losing to Michigan in November to win the national title. The Cavs had a glorious regular season before falling too early in the playoffs. And now , with the Guardians fading, we have a four-way contest for quarterback for the Browns. Our readers love their teams, and they love the folks we have covering those teams. The sports reporters and columnists seem to sprint year round.

We did something in May that was most unusual for us, hosting a town hall. Our Republican members of Congress largely are absent from Northeast Ohio and impossible for constituents to reach. We offered to host a town hall to fill the vacuum, and an engaged crowd joined us to talk about their anxieties in this challenging political era.

We’ve provided the coverage you’ve relied on for the Cleveland Clinic’s controversial but short-lived copay policy, the unprecedented chaos involving the Cleveland Heights mayor, the never-ending saga of the Cleveland Browns stadium and the promising plans for Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. We continue to be your concierge for the region’s rich and growing restaurant and bar scene, week after week.

We also took some big steps in 2025 to improve some of our platforms. We greatly increased the number of comics we offer while beefing up the Extra section in the digital version of The Plain Dealer. We are soon to add another feature to the digital version that will make it even more of a destination for readers. We also combined the 10 editions of the weekly Sun News into one power-packed edition loaded with the news that had filled the previous editions. None of that comes without planning and collaboration, and we’ve been grateful for your patience as we rolled out our changes and ironed out some of the kinks.

All in all, we’ve made a good run in the first six months of 2025, and we have big plans for the second half. We’ll soon announce a staggering increase in our high school sports content, and we’re working on covering a wider swath of Northeast Ohio than we have in recent years. Stay tuned.

Of course, none of this is possible without you. Readers have sent me tens of thousands of texts and emails already this year, keeping me grounded on what is important to them. Your support through subscriptions to cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer pays the wages of the reporters and editors who work so hard to bring you the news and engage with you. 

So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate you.

The halfway point of the year is also a great time for me to take a week off, so no column next week. I’ll be celebrating my 40th anniversary with my lovely bride. The column returns July 19. 

I’m at cquinn@cleveland.com

Thanks for reading.