The PD editor and gun nuts play a strange game of chicken

August 4, 2004
Cleveland Scene

When Ohio's concealed-weapons law was passed with the provision that only journalists have access to the names of registered carriers, Plain Dealer Editor Doug Clifton declared that he would publish complete lists of all area residents who receive the permits.

Last week, The PD splashed the names of heat-packing Northeast Ohioans over two and a half pages. Not surprisingly, the move drew the ire of Ohioans for Concealed Carry, which maintains that family newspapers have no right to divulge who's walking around with an unnatural bulge in their pants.

So with eye-for-an-eye resolve that would make Suge Knight proud, OFCC deftly returned fire by posting Clifton's name and phone number and a map to his house on its website. "The editor of the Cleveland [paper] believes in open records," the site reads. "Thus he should certainly have no problem with OFCC publishing his home address and telephone number . . ."

Ouch! And just how did the cunning sleuths unearth such privileged information? They pilfered it from the phone book, where Clifton's home number has appeared for years.

"The posting, I gather, had two purposes," Clifton wrote. "The first was to say 'turnabout is fair play': Public records are public records, and you're not exempt. The second was to intimidate. Why else run a map?"

What he failed to mention is that he's an experienced stalker himself. Clifton made his bones at the Miami Herald by staking out then-Presidential candidate Gary Hart's townhouse to catch him fraternizing with a woman who was not exactly his wife. The revelation deep-sixed Hart's candidacy and became the template for the sex-crazed reporting that would bring us Monicagate.

But what if some pissed-off gun nut decides to take OFCC up on its none-too-subtle suggestion to visit Clifton? "It's a ridiculous question," responds spokesman Chad Baus of Fulton County, who's also -- hint, hint -- listed in the phone book. Perhaps it is. As Clifton noted in an appearance on a National Rifle Association radio show, "I have had guns my whole life. I have a gun in my home -- a pistol."

Consider it a none-too-subtle warning of his own: This editor packs heat.