Life According to Tom Beres

Just when Tom Beres thought he had seen it all in 37 years of covering local and national politics, the 2016 presidential election happened. “Collectively speaking, the pundits and pollsters all ended up sitting in a corner with a huge dunce cap on,” says Beres, who retired from WKYC in December. The four-time Emmy Award winner and Press Club of Cleveland Hall of Famer shares what he’s learned from a career talking politics.

Anybody who went to Trump events saw a line out the door and down the street. It was a movement. Clinton’s events were well orchestrated but the passion and intensity wasn’t at the same level. 

It was the old silent majority coming back with a roar.

I had an opportunity to interview Bernie Sanders. When we got to the end of the interview he said, “You seem like a nice young man.”

Sen. Sherrod Brown and Supreme Court Justice Bill O’Neill are pretty much what’s left at the barricades for the Ohio Democrats. Ohio is a swing state that’s swinging right. It’s now more reddish purple than blue. 

Politics has become so personal and so passionate.

We’re the 17th largest market in the country and a big part of our viewing audience is in the outlying counties. We don’t get out to them enough. 

When you’re viewing everything through a Cleveland prism, you get a warped sense of reality.

I started as editor of the Westlake High School paper back in the Mastodon Era when Westlake was apple orchards and cornfields before it became a boomtown.

I sharpened Dick Feagler’s pencils and filled his coffee cup as a copyboy at The Cleveland Press. 

When a writer needed something, they yelled “Boy!” I didn’t like it and the other copyboys, two African-American guys and two women, really didn’t like it.

Dennis Kucinich, George Forbes and Mike White created chaos at City Hall. They cast larger shadows than most of local government leadership does now. 

There was a lot more drama and colorful personalities, which was great for journalism.

Jimmy Dimora was such a gregarious, backslapping, personally likeable guy — but we didn’t see the more sordid side. 

I’m not a Jimmy Dimora apologist, but he’s serving more time in jail than rapists and big-time drug dealers.

Public service has become a more thankless and difficult task now. 

I still start from the assumption that most people in politics are doing it for the betterment of the community.

I’m not going home to binge-watch Netflix. I’m hoping there will be opportunities to make good use of whatever modest abilities I have.