A succession of readers has written me since Election Day to ask when I’ll publicly reconcile our election coverage with the results, arguing that Donald Trump’s victory proves we’ve lost our way as journalists. They want to know what our newsroom will do differently henceforth, to compensate. It’s a strange sentiment to receive from just one person, but multiple readers keep sending variations on the theme. My response: It’s ridiculous. Our election coverage was about truth. Our future coverage will be about truth. Nothing changes, and to suggest otherwise is to ask us to start writing fiction. That Trump won does not alter the fact that he is a chronic liar and convicted felon. It does not alter that a civil court jury found him liable for sexually abusing an advice columnist. It does not change the truth that he sparked an insurrection rather than accept his 2020 election loss. Our coverage of Trump, JD Vance, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Sherrod Brown, Bernie Moreno, Ohio’s Issue 1 and everything else during the 2024 election season was about facts. Separately, our opinion content about the same subjects was balanced, with perspectives from all sides. Some readers point out that many candidates our Editorial Board endorsed – like Brown – lost. Our endorsements are not predictions or exercises in populism. Brown was far superior to Bernie Moreno is every way you could measure a candidate, a fact that does not change because Brown lost. The writers I’m hearing from are jubilant about the results. Giddy, even. They say Trump’s win proves we have lost touch with the voters and, for some reason, exult in what they believe is the coming end of our newsroom. First, as I’ve explained a few times, our newsroom is in its best financial health in years. After much experimentation, we have figured out how to thrive in the digital era, and I have not been so optimistic about our future in decades. Second, to say we are out of touch with readers is demonstrably false. Our nation is evenly divided and has been for decades. A tiny sliver of voters in the center decide the presidential elections, and the only certainty you can take away from how they vote is they are fickle. They never seem to be satisfied. Think about it. We went from Republicans Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford to Democrat Jimmy Carter. We went from Republicans Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush to Democrat Bill Clinton. To Republican George W. Bush. To Democrat Barack Obama. To Republican Trump. To Democrat Biden. To Republican Trump. See a pattern there? Fickle. You’ll find no Trump mandate in the voting results. The nation has not swung behind him in some huge wave. He didn’t even win half the votes cast, meaning more people voted against him than for him. I think the election back-and-forth results over the years show America is disgusted with the candidates that our wayward political parties nominate. The parties have become as bad as the old-time political bosses in putting forth weak leaders. We don’t get good choices on most Election Days. One of the reasons I put John F. Kennedy’s 1963 Thanksgiving proclamation on the front page of The Plain Dealer’s holiday edition was to remind readers of when political leaders had compassion in their hearts and steel in their veins, when our best politicians meant what they said and didn’t equivocate. That’s not Trump. And, it turns out, it’s not Biden. His pardoning of his son betrays the nation and makes him into a liar, after he vowed not to issue the pardon. Keeping a promise like that should mean something to a president. Hunter Biden was convicted. He’s a criminal, just like Trump. The president’s power to pardon people was not created to take care of family members. Biden corrupted it. Some readers have asked me for my personal take on the election’s outcome. My thought is that Trump was a far worse president than I thought he’d be the first time around, and I suspect he’ll be a better president than many predict this time. He and the frat house cabinet he has assembled know that tanking the economy with sky-high tariffs is no way to keep power. They want to stick around beyond his term, and he clearly wants a legacy of success. I think we’ll get through the next few years just fine, with a lot of hiccups. I hope so, anyway. But, I am terribly dismayed by the lack of character and integrity in those who lead us, now and into 2025. Integrity mattered in the days of John F. Kennedy. It should now. Biden should never have pardoned his son. He asked us to elect him president, meaning his duty was to put the nation first. By pardoning his son, he has further collapsed our faith in elected leaders, harming the nation. Our leaders today stand for nothing. They don’t live up to their word. We do, though. I said earlier this year that truth is our north star, and it is. Nothing changes. Unlike those who lead the nation, our newsroom does stand for something. And in the new year, we’ll still be here, reporting the facts, offering balanced opinion and fulfilling the role of watchdog. We will continuously review ourselves and consider criticisms, but we will not let partisans deter us from our mission with specious complaints or bizarre demands for reconciliation. No journalist should. The news team I work with is dedicated to serving our community and state, by getting the facts right and seeking the truth. It’s what we did yesterday. It’s what we do today. And it’s what we will do for a lot of tomorrows. I’m at cquinn@cleveland.com Thanks for reading. | 