Patrick O’Donnell is one of the best education journalists in the nation. He has covered charter and cyber charter scandals in Cleveland and in Ohio without fear or favor. Ohio, as you may have noticed, is awash in charter corruption.

O’Donnell worked for the Cleveland Plain-Dealer until last weekend, when the newspaper pushed out its leading journalists and told them they could cover far-flung areas if they want to stay employed. The order from on high essentially fired union journalists and gutted the newspaper’s coverage of Cleveland.

The Plain-Dealer is part of Advance Publications, which is owned by the billionaire Newhouse family. Advance is engaged in cost-cutting that will destroy local journalism. It’s all about the Almighty Dollar.