#Connie dockart facebook trial

Schultz was actually a reluctant adopter of Facebook, taking to the platform only because reporting demanded it when, in 2007, she was trying to contact Cleveland college students at Virginia Tech in the aftermath of the campus shooting. “Not just because she welcomes a diversity of viewpoints but because I care enough about the community she’s built there that I’m really invested in the conversation.” “I like the fact that the toughest online debates I’ve ever had have been on her page,” Marcia Bryant, a Clevelander and regular reader, said in an email. (It was Brown’s political career that prompted her to resign from The Plain Dealer in 2011.) But on her Facebook page, people with different political viewpoints are also part of the conversation, as well as people from different cities and varying economic situations. Schultz, of course, is transparent about her liberal politics, and the fact that she is married to Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat in the US Senate. For journalists seeking a path to meaningful engagement with readers-not just a way to blast links and hashtags at them-the page is a model. “I want to be a trusted source.” And it’s working. “I don’t want to be a celebrity,” she adds. Schultz’s clear-eyed moderation staves off rumor-mongering, heightening the credibility of the page, and other journalists, too, weigh in on the discussion. In breaking-news moments, like the 2012 Chardon High School shooting, it is a place to turn for latest developments, with bad information filtered out. Threads on the Brelo verdict, for example, traded tips on where demonstrations were unfolding. It is also, like any good news source, eminently useful. (Pointedly, Schultz uses a personal page with public settings, rather than a fan page.)Īs a reader who has sometimes found the big-picture, contextual coverage from Cleveland news organizations wanting, I have discovered that Schultz’s Facebook page is energizing. There’s also a healthy dose of opinionating about LeBron James, naturally, while personal touches-like photos of Schultz’s dog, Franklin-serve as disarming points of connection amid the sometimes spirited debate.

#Connie dockart facebook trial

The Cleveland-centric feed is infused with national headlines conversations move between the verdict in the Michael Brelo trial to presidential politics to the consent decree between the Department of Justice and the Cleveland Police Department. But arguably her biggest presence these days is on Facebook, where she has cultivated a community of more than 130,000 followers on a page that serves as both a news source and a forum for civil discussion of tough issues.

She has adapted the classic newspaper column to her Facebook page, bringing the best of the traditional form-newsiness, insight, journalistic principles, and personability-to a forum that often serves as a narrower vehicle for self-promotion.Ī former columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, where she won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, Schultz is now a syndicated columnist and a contributor to Politico Magazine and Parade. In an era when journalists feel pressure to use social media to build their personal brands, Connie Schultz has done something far more interesting.