At OMW, we primarily cover the local broadcast media…but we’ll post items about the print media if they’re significant enough to warrant local attention. This one is.
Long-time Akron Beacon Journal sportswriter Terry Pluto is leaving the newspaper after 22 years to join the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The Beacon confirmed the move in an item just posted to Ohio.com.
Rubber City Radio’s AkronNewsNow website (WAKR/WQMX/WONE) had first confirmation of the rumor that was bouncing around local media types this morning, with more background from both inside, and outside, the Beacon’s East Exchange Street headquarters.
It’s actually a return to the hometown paper for native Clevelander Pluto. He was the PD’s Indians beat writer in the early 80’s before making the move down I-77 to become the Beacon’s Cavaliers beat writer. (Well, after a brief stop somewhere in Georgia, at any rate.)
Pluto has been an award-winning columnist for the Beacon since 1993, and has also been writing a column on faith.
The announcement says Pluto will take “a similar position” as a sports columnist for the Plain Dealer.
And in a line surely aimed at questions about the recent upheaval at the Akron paper in the wake of its sale to Black Press, editor Brian Winges notes: “This decision is not about Terry being unhappy at the Beacon Journal. It is more about Terry seeing an opportunity to reach a wider audience, and to reach that audience in the city and region that he knows best.”
Winges tells his staff writer that the ABJ will seek a new sports columnist…
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