Editor's note: This is from the Nov. 1, 2022, What Happened Now? newsletter.
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Hey, all.
Bit of a special dispatch here. Something came up, and I feel the need to address it.
A few of you have written to say you don’t love that I share certain political stories. (And by “certain political stories” I mean political stories you don’t agree with.) This was inevitable. Newsletters differ from other news platforms. In a newsletter, for example, you can write a word like cattywampus for no reason at all. You’re expecting some serious media discourse and boom – cattywampus, which, for the record, is neither a type of cat nor a type of wampus.
Good newsletters are driven by a mission. I embarked on this labor of love because – darn it – I love journalism, and I love to talk about big scoops, great storytelling and stories that bring us together. The idea here is to share local news in a way that is interesting enough to make you want to open your email every day. I do this by focusing on what I think is interesting about a story. No one minds most of the time because most people don’t have passionate opinions about unsavory walleye anglers.
Politics are different.
You may correctly observe that I often call attention to what Republicans do at the state level. This is because – and I can’t emphasize this enough – Democrats don’t matter at the state level. I mean they do, but they don’t. Not enough of them are in power. Me focusing on Democrats at the state level would be like our sports reporters focusing on why the Tight Ends Coach doesn’t do more to win Browns games. You might respond, “Democrats are irrelevant because Republicans gerrymandered them into oblivion. To which I’d say, “I am well aware.”
Careful observers may also have noticed I call attention to what Democrats do at the city and county levels. That’s because – and I can’t emphasize this enough – Republicans don’t matter at the city and county levels. See: Browns Tight Ends Coach Joke. Cleveland has had a Democratic mayor for 32 straight years and 66 of the last 80. (Worth noting: Cleveland has not had a Whig mayor since 1850. Maybe it’s time.)
My biases, as much as I’m aware of them, are not political, but I’ll share those, briefly. I hold the extremely controversial view that sometimes the government is harmful, sometimes it is helpful, corruption is bad, free speech is good, and we should react to anyone who disagrees with us in good faith. I suspect that’s how many people feel, and I also suspect it’s why a growing number of Americans are fleeing the two major parties and calling themselves independent. (Until the Whig resurgence. It is time.)
My coverage preferences tend toward power, accountability and LOLs. Power – because who wields it affects us all. Accountability – because that’s the job of journalists. LOLs – because news matters – it’s literally my life – but we need not be so deathly serious about it all of the time.
That’s a choice I’ve made. I choose not to go full level-9 freakout every day. I think the people who are constantly stirring you up on various cable TV networks are doing it for their own benefit – not yours. Me making choices like that – to not freak you out daily – brings us to the nature of newsletters themselves.
The point of view of a proper newsletter is distinctive. It’s distinctive because newsletters are at their most interesting when they’re written by an individual (usually a nerd like me) who covers a specific topic and has an inimitable point of view. Readers prefer the informed-yet-casual voice of an actual human.
That’s where I’m coming from. I am biased toward being interesting. If you can only handle getting your news from sources that tell you exactly what you want to hear, and you live in fear that your preferred party cannot possibly survive observations lobbed from a mildly popular regional newsletter, you are welcome to unsubscribe. I don’t want you to. But no one’s forcing you here. Personally, I like to think that if you enjoy the weird way I share the news every day, you can survive both the dad jokes and the possibility that your devotion to a singular point of view might briefly go cattywampus.
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Joe Donatelli publishes "What Happened Now?", a daily email roundup of the biggest and most interesting stories in Northeast Ohio.
