With 2024 waning, the newsroom races to generate content to publish through the holidays, so that as many staffers who wish to be off can be, but we also consider at this time of the year how to get the new year off to a strong start.

That shouldn’t be a problem in 2025, with some changes we’re making and new faces joining the staff. We’re pretty excited.

First, we’re expanding out Statehouse Bureau. Month after month in our subscriber surveys, the stories by the Statehouse and politics team are almost always the top reason people visit our platforms. Yes, even more popular than Browns stories.

In reviewing where we stood this year, we recognized that we could do a lot more on education topics if we devoted a Statehouse beat to them, so we created that position. Veteran Statehouse reporter Laura Hancock already included education stories among her many duties, so we were jazzed when she raised her hand for the full-time role. She will cover topics from pre-k through higher education. This is not about covering individual school districts or colleges. The aim is topics that are important to parents, taxpayers and students. And Laura already is on a roll. You can read some of her recent work at www.cleveland.com/user/lahancock/posts.html.

Filling Laura’s former role is Anna Staver, a veteran Statehouse reporter who most recently has been the host and executive producer of All Sides, a daily public affairs show at WOSU in Columbus. She also launched a podcast called Untangled to explain complicated policy topics. This is a big win for our readers. Anna is a pro with many sources and a deep understanding of what goes on in Columbus. Because she has worked in multiple platforms, she can help us reach more audiences than we do now. She’s that rare journalist who can do it all, including write beautifully.

We have a new chief political writer joining us as 2025 dawns. Kim Lyons has been editor in chief of the Pennsylvania Capital Star, part of The States Newsroom, a nationwide non-profit focused on state governments and policies. Kim’s a veteran with a practiced eye, and she’ll provide bold analysis, mainly of what’s going on with the Statehouse and Ohio’s Congressional contingent, but with part of her time devoted to Cuyahoga County politics. Like Anna, she’s a journalist with a zeal for the writing.

Anna and Kim will join our politics team with Washington-based Sabrina Eaton and Columbus-based Jeremy Pelzer, Jake Zuckerman and Laura, all working with Rick Rouan, our Statehouse and politics editor. It’s a powerhouse team if ever there was one.

Separately, I know a great many readers will be happy to hear that Rich Exner will return to reporting in late January or February, after his three-year spin as an editor. Rich realized a while back that his true love in journalism is reporting, and he wants to get back to it. He was our most popular writer with readers before he became an editor, so his return will be a crowd-pleaser. He’ll be covering a variety of topics, including planning and transportation.

Replacing Rich in the editing ranks is Courtney Astolfi, the only reporter any of us can remember who covered both the Cuyahoga County government beat and the Cleveland City Hall beat. We’ll miss her reporting, but we think her expertise and wisdom will give our content a boost as she works with a team of reporters.

The City Hall beat is one of our most prized. We’ve had a long line of great journalists cover it. Joining their ranks is Sean McDonnell, who has been writing business stories along with his unique consumer advice column, Saving You Money. Sean has quickly become one of Ohio’s best reporters, in my opinion. He’s resourceful, thoughtful and accurate. He’s been aching to cover a beat like City Hall, and he’s the ideal candidate to take it on.

We have a couple of other positions still to fill – including Sean’s business role – and we’re moving to get people into them early in the new year. With the changes I describe here, though, we’re already going into 2025 at high speed. We hope you like what you see coming through the hands of the folks I name here.

I’m at cquinn@cleveland.com

Thanks for reading.