Education:
Bachelor of Arts in Journalism, Ohio State University, 1976; Master of Science (journalism), Ohio University, 2002; Certificate in Contemporary History, Ohio University’s Contemporary History Institute, 2008; Ph.D., mass communication-journalism, Ohio University, 2009.
Experience:
Editor of the Ohio State Lantern, that university’s campus paper, summer 1975; temporary editorial writer – replacing writers on leaves – at the Chicago Sun-Times and the Des Moines Register and Tribune (1976-77); editorial editor-writer at Foster’s Daily Democrat, Dover, N.H. (1978-79); editorial writer, then assistant news editor, at the Jackson, Miss., Clarion-Ledger (1979-82); news editor of its Sunday edition with the Jackson Daily News; state desk reporter, Statehouse reporter, Columbus bureau chief (1988-90) and chief legislative correspondent at The Plain Dealer (1982-2000); in 1991-92, as president of the Ohio Legislative Correspondents Association, instrumental in securing a new Statehouse Pressroom; currently columnist on Ohio politics, The [Cleveland] Plain Dealer, The Columbus Dispatch, Dayton Daily News and Springfield News-Sun; associate editor and member of the editorial board, The [Cleveland] Plain Dealer-Northeast Ohio Media Group.
Research/Publications:
Chapter author, Ohio Politics. Edited by Alexander Lamis et al. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1994 [1st ed.] and 2007 [2nd ed.]; units in the Teaching Cleveland curriculum project: “The Adult Education Tradition in Greater Cleveland,” and, “Newton D. Baker, Cleveland’s Greatest Mayor.”
Recognitions, Awards, Academic Honors:
Recipient, E.W. Scripps School of Journalisms L.J. Hortin Distinguished Alumnus Award, 2012; elected, 2014, to the Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame, by members of the Press Club of Cleveland; elected to membership, Kappa Tau Alpha [national journalism honor society] and Phi Kappa Phi [national all-discipline honor society]; designated, in its Sept. 25, 2002, issue by the Cleveland Free Times, a metropolitan alternative weekly, as No. 1 local journalist in its list of “Top 10 Local Journalists.” On June 19, 2002, the Free Times had opined: “Tom Suddes: He’s a consistent, sharp voice about what’s going on in Columbus, and one of the only reporters who understands why Ohio is governed by a group of bozos.”