"Plain Dealing" is a book of essays by 25 accomplished Cleveland-area journalists. It's a book of stories, many never told before. It's a first-person account of journalism in Cleveland, life in the newsroom, the issues and events these journalists covered, and the characters they worked with and met. The stories begin in the 1950s and go up to 2013, covering the post-World War II era through the days when Cleveland was a three daily newspaper city, then two, then one. The book ends with the mass layoffs and resulting decline that ushered in the "digital-first" age.

This new and highly readable textbook by Richard M. Perloff introduces students to the complex world of contemporary news and its theoretical underpinnings, engaging with debates and ethical quandaries. The book takes readers on a concept-guided tour of the contours, continuities, and changing features of news. It covers a huge breadth of topics including: the classic theories of what news should do, its colorful history in America and popular myths of news, the overarching forces involved in contemporary news gathering, critical economic determinants of news and social system influences, and innovative trends in the future of journalism. Drawing on scholarship in the fields of journalism studies and sociology of news, Perloff offers readers a critical, in-depth exploration of news filled with relevant examples from newspapers, newscasts, and social media. Students of journalism, communication, sociology, politics, and related courses, as well as inquisitive scholars, will find this book’s intellectual focus enriching, the writing and examples engaging, and the thoroughness of its search of the contemporary media scene invigorating. Boxes summarizing theory and key concepts help students to deepen their understanding of both what news is now and its future.

The foulest crimes and worst in Cleveland history are recounted in these 15 incredible-but-true tales. Each no-holds-barred account into one of this city's most notorious moments, from the 1916 waterworks collapse to the Cleveland Clinic fire to the sensational Sam Sheppard murder trial. These gripping narratives deliver high drama and dark comedy, heroes and villains, obsession, courage, treachery, deceit, fear, and guilt -- all from the streets of Cleveland.

Going Solo: Doing Videojournalism in the 21st Century details the controversy, history, and rise of this news genre, but its main objective is to show aspiring videojournalists how to learn the craft. While other textbooks depict the conventional reporter-and-videographer mode, Going Solo innovates by teaching readers how to successfully juggle the skill traditionally required of two different people.

The #1 New York Times Bestseller A bestselling book that is inspiring the nation: “We have written here about terrible things that we never wanted to think about again . . . Now we want the world to know: we survived, we are free, we love life.” Two women kidnapped by infamous Cleveland school-bus driver Ariel Castro share the stories of their abductions, captivity, and dramatic escape On May 6, 2013, Amanda Berry made headlines around the world when she fled a Cleveland home and called 911, saying: “Help me, I’m Amanda Berry. . . . I’ve been kidnapped, and I’ve been missing for ten years.” A horrifying story rapidly unfolded. Ariel Castro, a local school bus driver, had separately lured Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight to his home, where he kept them chained. In the decade that followed, the three were raped, psychologically abused, and threatened with death. Berry had a daughter—Jocelyn—by their captor. Drawing upon their recollections and the diary kept by Amanda Berry, Berry and Gina DeJesus describe a tale of unimaginable torment, and Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post reporters Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan interweave the events within Castro’s house with original reporting on efforts to find the missing girls. The full story behind the headlines—including details never previously released on Castro’s life and motivations—Hope is a harrowing yet inspiring chronicle of two women whose courage, ingenuity, and resourcefulness ultimately delivered them back to their lives and families.

A collection of political remembrances from a longtime Statehouse and Washington bureau reporter Son of an Ohio Supreme Court Justice and longtime political reporter, Rick Zimmerman presents Ohio politics from the inside. He began learning about Ohio politics and politicians as a young boy, sitting at the dinner table presided over by his father, Judge Charles Ballard Zimmerman. The author says his "father was a Democrat of sorts, but identified with the Jeffersonian wing of the party. In short, he was a conservative and a favorable mention of Franklin Roosevelt was practically banned in our house." Yet, in spite of these philosophical leanings, the elder Zimmerman was truly nonpartisan as far as his political tales were concerned, with an opinion about most political leaders from both parties, that were for the most part negative, a "perspective which my later critics likely would suggest I inherited," contends Zimmerman. In the same way his father entertained with his reminiscences, author Rick Zimmerman tells stories of and on Ohio's politicians and their machinations, including governors (James Rhodes and Mike DiSalle), senators, and congressmen. His discussions of Watergate, his African sabbatical, and the National Press Club and reflections on the state of journalism are refreshing, witty, and insightful. Plain Dealing is an engaging memoir that doubles as an irreverent look at Ohio's political history.

Major Motion Picture based on Dark Alliance and starring Jeremy Renner, "Kill the Messenger," to be be released in Fall 2014 In August 1996, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb stunned the world with a series of articles in the San Jose Mercury News reporting the results of his year-long investigation into the roots of the crack cocaine epidemic in America, specifically in Los Angeles. The series, titled “Dark Alliance,” revealed that for the better part of a decade, a Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to Los Angeles street gangs and funneled millions in drug profits to the CIA-backed Nicaraguan Contras. Gary Webb pushed his investigation even further in his book, Dark Alliance: The CIA, The Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Drawing from then newly declassified documents, undercover DEA audio and videotapes that had never been publicly released, federal court testimony, and interviews, Webb demonstrates how our government knowingly allowed massive amounts of drugs and money to change hands at the expense of our communities. Webb’s own stranger-than-fiction experience is also woven into the book. His excoriation by the media—not because of any wrongdoing on his part, but by an insidious process of innuendo and suggestion that in effect blamed Webb for the implications of the story—had been all but predicted. Webb was warned off doing a CIA expose by a former Associated Press journalist who lost his job when, years before, he had stumbled onto the germ of the “Dark Alliance” story. And though Internal investigations by both the CIA and the Justice Department eventually vindicated Webb, he had by then been pushed out of the Mercury News and gone to work for the California State Legislature Task Force on Government Oversight. He died in 2004.