Monday, March 2nd

Welcome to the inaugural edition of The Pennant, a newsletter by Ohioans for Ohioans. New editions will be delivered every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

The Pennant will feature rotating sections that may become permanent based on reader interest and feedback, not algorithms. Our commitment is to deliver fact-based reporting that informs and serves our readers.

American journalism is beyond broken — and has been for some time.

The traditional newspaper, once the backbone of informed civic life, has been hollowed out. What remains is often little more than a patchwork of wire service stories, a handful of underpaid reporters scrambling to fill column inches, and increasingly, content generated by artificial intelligence. Television news is no better. The carefully reported segments that once defined broadcast journalism have given way to a parade of press release-driven videos scraped from Facebook and TikTok.

The public has noticed. A 2020 Pew Research Center survey found that fewer than half of Americans had confidence in journalists to act in the public's best interest, and that most believed news organizations don't care about the people they cover. That's not cynicism without cause — that's a verdict today's journalists earned.

Meanwhile, 24-hour cable news has traded facts for feelings. Talking heads dominate the airwaves, partisan silos have replaced public discourse, and algorithms, not editors, decide what stories reach the American people. The information highway has become a feedback loop, where retweets and likes carry more weight than truth, and "fact-checking" is only as reliable as whoever is doing the checking.

That's the landscape we found ourselves staring at when we decided something had to change.

We make no grand promises. People claiming to be journalists have made enough of those. What we offer instead is something simpler and, we think, more valuable: professionals who will look at the facts, follow them wherever they lead, even if it’s troubling. Our focus will be on the State of Ohio and stories that touch your lives.

We won’t be perfect. But we do care about Ohio, about truth, and about earning your trust.

That's why we started The Pennant. We hope you'll read us.

In recent years, education reporters have searched for districts serving primarily low-income populations while achieving high academic test scores. That search has put a spotlight on the small steel town of Steubenville.

For decades, research has indicated that schools serving low-income populations almost always have lower test scores. According to the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University, Ohio considers almost all of Steubenville's students to be economically disadvantaged, so how do they consistently score in the top 10% nationwide?

Continue reading here

Spring is normally the home-buying season, and this year, there is good news for those in the market. For the first time in more than three years, mortgage rates have fallen below 6%. The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 5.90%, the lowest level since September 2022.

The U.S. Department of Education has reached resolution agreements with 31 universities, including the University of Cincinnati and Ohio State University, regarding their partnerships with The PhD Project, a nonprofit that the federal government alleges discriminates based on race. The PhD Project, founded in 1994, helps people earn business doctoral degrees to diversify faculty and leadership pipelines, and claims to have helped over 1,500 students earn doctorates.

The OCR's investigation stems from the Trump administration's broader push to eliminate DEI at publicly funded institutions.

While the Ohio General Assembly has passed laws capping property tax growth to inflation following reappraisals, no legislation has been enacted that completely prevents tax bills from increasing when property values rise.

Ohio's mix of income, sales, and property taxes results in a system that many households feel acutely. A 2023 WalletHub study found Ohio's overall tax burden to be among the top 10 in the nation.

The Pennant welcomes letters to the editor and guest columns from readers. Submissions may be edited for length, clarity, and AP style. The Pennant reserves the right to verify all information contained in submissions before publication.

Please send all submissions to [email protected]