PD publisher to retire after first of year

Plain Dealer publisher Terrance C.Z. Egger will retire from the newspaper shortly after the first of next year, Egger announced today.

“I will be 55 this week, and while it has not been an easy decision to leave a career and industry that I love, I am excited about starting a productive next phase in my life, Egger said in a note to Plain Dealer staffers.

Egger joined The Plain Dealer in May 2006 as publisher, president and chief executive officer, overseeing the policy and operations of Ohio’s largest newspaper in Ohio.

He also oversees operations for the Sun Newspapers, a chain of weeklies published in communities across Northeast Ohio.

The Plain Dealer and Sun are owned by New York-based Advance Publications.

Egger said in the note that he has not decided what he will do next although “I do hope a part of it is returning to teach in a college classroom.”
He also said he would lead the search for his successor at The Plain Dealer.

Prior to joining The Plain Dealer, Egger was publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He also worked with Tucson Newspapers in Arizona, for the Copley Los Angeles Newspapers, and he began his newspaper career at a small biweekly in Southern California. Prior to newspapers, Egger taught college communication courses in California.

Egger serves on the Executive Committee for the Greater Cleveland Partnership. He also is a board member with the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, the Musical Arts Association and the Cleveland Museum of Art. He is a member of the United Way of Greater Cleveland board of directors and he served as United Way’s board chairman from 2010 to 2012.

A native of Rock Island, Ill., Egger and his wife, Renuka, live in Bay Village. They have three children: Anthony, Ali and Danny.

Printed PDs on their way out?

Is the Plain Dealer’s daily deliveries to your doorstep over?

That seems the thrust of a Cleveland Scene magazine article on the heels of publisher Terrance C.Z. Egger’s announcement that he will retire from the newspaper early next year.

Advance Publications, which owns the PD, has gone to 3-days-a-week delivery of its printed newspapers in sister newspapers in Michigan (Ann Arbor News), Alabama (several papers), Louisiana (New Orleans Times-Picayune), New York (Syracuse Post-Standard) and Pennsylvania (Harrisburg Patriot-News).

Managing editor Thom Fladung and editor Debra Simmons dodged the question when they announced Egger’s impending department at a hastily called newsroom meeting.

To read the entire Cleveland Scene story, click on http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/the-publisher-bails/Content?oid=3053775

To reach an earlier BJ Alums article on Egger’s upcoming departure, click on http://bjretirees.blogspot.com/search?q=PD+publisher+to+retire

Plain Dealer's Clifton to retire in June

Douglas C. Clifton, editor of The Plain Dealer for nearly eight years and the man credited with elevating its news coverage, ended months of speculation this morning by announcing his retirement. He will leave the paper June 1.

“I’ve decided to let the cat out of the bag now,” he told about 130 staff members who gathered in the newsroom for the 10 a.m. announcement, “I can’t tolerate this telling of little white lies.”

Clifton went on to say that his decision had nothing to do with recent buyouts, which left the paper with 64 fewer newsroom employees; the state of the business; or the hiring of Publisher Terrance C.Z. Egger, who came to the Plain Dealer in May.

“This publisher is as good as it gets,” he said. “We lucked out.”

The business, he also said, is at an exhilarating turning point.

But as he approaches his 64th birthday, he’s ready to start a new chapter of his life, spending more time with his children and grandchildren, learning Spanish and renovating a Vermont home that he and his wife, Peg Clifton, own.

Clifton, 63, has served as the Plain Dealer’s top editor since June 1, 1999. In 2003, he was named Editor of the Year by Editor & Publisher magazine. Two years later, Connie Schultz won the paper’s first Pulitzer Prize in more than 50 years.

See PD story by Diane Suchetka


See update of an earlier article in Cleveland Magazine titled The New Dealer