Some changes you’ll see in our pages
As loyal readers know, we’re several years into the “Ideas & Voices” format for our opinion pages that focuses on community voices and balanced views. We’ve been listening to your comments and suggestions, and we’ve kicked off some changes to make these pages more valuable to our readers.
The most prominent change you’ll see on the page is the addition of a second daily cartoon, with each panel selected and presented from both sides of the political aisle. We know you want balanced views every day. So now you’ll find a cartoonist “From the Left” each day, alongside one “From the Right.” We’ll be adding a few artists to the stable, including Lisa Benson, a noted conservative voice with a sharp pen.
We’ve also made some adjustments to our lineup of syndicated national columnists, including two new conservative writers.
On Monday, we’ve replaced Mona Charen with Michelle Malkin. On Tuesdays, we will be running Star Parker in place of Ross Douthat.
Parker has been on our pages before, and some readers have written asking that we bring her back as a reliable from-theright voice. Her website notes she is “one of the names on the short list of national black conservative leaders. Parker is the founder and president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, a Washington, D.C.-based public policy institute that promotes market-based solutions to fight poverty (and) transition America’s poor from government dependency. In 1996, she was a featured speaker at the Republican National Convention.”
Malkin is also making a reappearance on our pages. She is on the staff of Conservative Review as senior editor and CRTV as host of “Michelle Malkin Investigates.” She has written six books, including “Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies,” and “Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores.”
On the other side of the page, we have also made a change in our “From The Left” lineup. Starting Thursday, Frank Bruni of the New York Times will substitute for Robert Reich.
Reich’s primary subject matter — economics — overlapped with the views of Times economics writer Paul Krugman, who runs on Mondays. In the interest of broadening the subject matter we offer our readers, Bruni seemed like a good and timely change.
Bruni has been a columnist for the Times since 2011, after a career that included covering the White House and New York restaurants, plus a stint at the paper’s Sunday magazine. He’s written three books, and his column, as the Times notes, “reflects on diverse topics, including: American politics, higher education, popular culture and gay rights.”
On Sundays, you’ll find that the main Ideas & Voices page remains a place where we usually explore a single topic and offer voices from around the region to help examine issues that matter. As the paper’s community impact editor, I work with the reporting team that is producing our Path Forward project, which seeks solutions to some of the most pressing issues our community faces — recovering from the opioid crisis, creating a stronger economy, and improving the Dayton Public Schools. Many Sundays, the page will focus on one of those topics.
As always, we want to know what you think of our work. Send your thoughts my way at ronald.rollins@coxinc.com. Ron Rollins, the community impact editor of the Dayton Daily News, edits the Ideas & Voices pages.