Credit: Plain Dealer
We’ll echo many who are sending well wishes to Thom Fladung today, who is leaving the Plain Dealer, where he was managing editor, for a new opportunity. We’ve had our bones to pick with him and some of our other pals over at 1801 Superior (and Tower City), but Thom has always been nothing but responsive and forthright with us, especially while the PD had no Top Man, and for that we thank him.

Here’s PD Editor George Rodrigue’s email to the staff today.

Folks,

I’m very sorry to say that Thom Fladung is leaving us.

Thom joined The Plain Dealer as managing editor in February of 2011, and helped steer the newsroom (like so many other newsrooms across the country) through some of the most difficult times in the history of American journalism. Even before my arrival, I heard glowing stories about Thom’s integrity, his work ethic, and his good sense and good humor. Now that I’ve been here awhile, I can attest to the accuracy of those stories. He’s a great editor and a wonderful colleague.

Before coming to the PD, Thom was editor of the St. Paul Pioneer Press in Minnesota, and managing editor of the Detroit Free Press and the Akron Beacon Journal. He also worked for The State and The Columbia Record, both in South Carolina; the Beavercreek Daily News, just outside of Dayton; and The Repository in Canton. He’s held editing and reporting positions in just about every corner of the newsroom, including Business, Features, Metro, Sports, the Copy Desk and the News Desk.

He’s also helped a couple of generations of journalists learn the craft, and helped them do work they’d never imagined themselves capable of doing.

In other words, he’s done just about everything a talented person can do in newspapering. His next plans involve something different. Which is good for him, and sad for us. Please join me in wishing him well.


This article appears in Jun 24-30, 2015.

Vince Grzegorek has been with Scene since 2007 and editor-in-chief since 2012. He previously worked at Discount Drug Mart and Texas Roadhouse.

3 replies on “Good Luck to Thom Fladung, Who’s Leaving the Plain Dealer”

  1. It’s worth it to note that in the subject line of the staff announcement, Gorge Rodrigeu couldn’t even be bothered to spell Thom’s name right. Real nice.

  2. The company has been plummeting into the abyss after Susan Goldberg halted the ol’ boy’s network of seeing, hearing and speaking no evil about the Dimora criminal network, but exited once Captain Click & Friends regained the power to usher back in those grand old days of pursuing press releases and being chummy to well-connected career politicians.

  3. Instead of being pushed out now, if the Plain Dealer had any ethics left, Thom Fladung would have been fired two years ago and never hired by anybody again.

    Remember when ex-kidnapee Amanda Berry went up on stage to disgustingly bump and grind with Nelly the rapper? They’ve been exploiting and milking everything about those three for over two years now.

    On July 27, 2013, Tom Feran wrote a story about that show, and there was only one person quoted. Feran implied this person was merely your simple average everyday “concertgoer.”

    Specifically, it was the two words Feran wrote after the word “concertgoer,” with no other specifics as to her identity, that was the journalistic problem of all problems. About the only thing worse is plagiarism. Whether or not Feran objected in any way to the order given to him, we’ll never know.

    Feran wrote the three words, “concertgoer Kayleigh Fladung.” Yep, that’s right. It was Thom Fladung’s daughter.

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