The Wake Up

The Wake Up is a Cleveland and Ohio morning briefing with a hard-news spine. It is built from cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer reporting, then compressed into a clear audio rundown. The format is simple and efficient. Each episode starts with the lead stories and keeps moving through the civic machinery behind them. State politics loom large, especially redistricting, elections, the Ohio Legislature, school-board fights, and fallout from the House Bill 6 scandal. Cleveland City Hall is never far away. The show tracks mayoral races, City Council contests, public-safety policy, transit recovery, Shaker Square, the Port of Cleveland, and the institutions that shape everyday life around Cleveland and Ohio. It also makes room for courts and consequences. Episodes cover wrongful-conviction developments, domestic-violence legislation, jail mismanagement, police killings, diversion-center policy, and the strain that crime places on families and neighborhoods. The health beat is practical, not abstract. Cleveland Clinic research, counterfeit masks, nursing shortages, school quarantine guidance, and substance-use research all appear as stories with local stakes. Chris Quinn is heard as the editor introducing and guiding the briefings. The delivery is brisk and reportorial. It favors names, actions, documents, votes, lawsuits, and official decisions over loose commentary. When a story is strange, such as Ohio’s corrected license plate design or the Cleveland Guardians name dispute, the show lets the details carry the absurdity. When a story is grave, it stays direct. The Wake Up works best as a civic dashboard for listeners who already care about the region but need a concise way to keep up. It is not a national politics recap with a Cleveland accent. It is a local accountability feed, anchored in the daily choices of officials, agencies, courts, campaigns, hospitals, schools, and neighborhoods.