Plain Dealer ME O'Hara going to KSU

Tom O'Hara, The Plain Dealer's Managing Editor since 2000, announced today he will leave the paper later this month to teach at Kent State University.

As the right-hand man to former Editor Douglas Clifton, O'Hara, 60, helped guide the paper to a Pulitzer Prize in 2005 and brought order and direction to a newsroom scrambling to cover the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the massive 2003 power outages that shut down much of the Northeast and Upper Midwest.

Since following Clifton here from their previous jobs in Florida, "Tomo" as he was known to the staff, could be counted on for boisterously announcing to the newsroom that there were "Page One opportunities!" for the next day's paper and for urging stories to be written so his next-door neighbor would want to read them.

Susan Goldberg, the new top editor at The Plain Dealer, said that though she has not worked with O'Hara very long, she considers him "an outstanding newspaper professional."

" He's got all the right moves: A great story sense, an urgency that spans the range from tomorrow's paper to the online future of our business - and one of the most finely tuned BS detectors around."

O'Hara, a resident of Broadview Heights, will teach classes in ethics and open government as part of Kent State's Professional in Residence program starting in January.

O'Hara said a lot of his journalism buddies took teaching jobs over the years and raved about the lifestyle.

"I got jealous," he said. "I think college professors live longer than managing editors."

Before coming to the Plain Dealer, Tom worked at five Florida newspapers: The Miami Herald, Palm Beach Post, The Daytona Beach News Journal, The Orlando Sentinel and The Gainesville Sun, where he started his career as a sports reporter in 1972.

He has a wife, Pam, a 19-year-old daughter Rachel, who is a sophomore at Ohio University, and a 17-year-old son who is a senior at Brecksville-Broadview Heights High School.
[Source: Cleveland Plain Dealer, Friday, September 7, 2007]