Mansfield News Journal, Feb. 28, 2010: Vision Quest
The recession had taken a toll on Mansfield, a city of nearly 50,000 in north central Ohio that struggled with manifold economic and social issues for decades before the mortgage and financial crises hit the nation. Once a proud blue-collar town where manufacturing and union labor thrived, Mansfield had bled businesses and jobs going back to the 1970s, and by February 2010 watched helplessly as General Motors -- once the city's largest employer -- shut its stamping plant for good.
The closure may have been a sign of the times for GM, but it was just one more haymaker for an already punch-drunk community. The City of Mansfield, including its school district, and Richland County had unraveled in the recession, their budgets strafed by ever-shrinking revenues and by the sudden loss of state and federal funding that kept local services running. Drastic budget cuts led to massive layoffs and severe cuts in city services, all of which professor and writer Christopher Phelps detailed in his brilliant profile of Mansfield as the recession's Anytown USA, "American Idle," in the Feb. 8 edition of The Nation.
I spoke with Phelps and his editors, and received permission to feature his 3,000-word story in its entirety in the News Journal on Sunday, Feb. 21, 2010. Not only would the article offer the big-picture perspective we at the NJ so often couldn't while covering the area on a daily basis, but it served as reminder of where the community stood -- a low point, for sure, but when looked at another way, it was also a good starting point for change.
And from what we were seeing and hearing from community leaders throughout Mansfield, change was necessary in all sectors -- education, business, neighborhoods, nonprofits and governance. But an article here and there, sprinkled into our news coverage or Biz Notes or Local News in Brief on a day-to-day basis, wasn't going to inspire action. We needed something big.
That something turned into "Vision Quest," a special four-section project that took stock of the advantages Mansfield offered, how those positives could be exploited and how Mansfielders could contribute to making the area a more pleasant, productive and successful city that would better keep its own best-and-brightest and attract more thriving businesses and families.
"Vision Quest" ultimately became the News Journal's biggest, best-selling, most profitable special section, and earned honors for Best Special Section in 2011 from the Associated Press Society of Ohio.
In developing, organizing and supervising the project, I was advised by NJ general manager/editor Tom Brennan and brainstormed with managing editor David Kennard, reporters and staffers as well as a variety of community officials and leaders. All brought great ideas, inspiring work ethics and welcome enthusiasm to the project, especially local night editor Larry Phillips, who edited the lion's share of the copy and wrote the introduction for Vision Quest for that Sunday's front page, and online editor Holly Fackler, whose behind-the-scenes work and indispensible insights and advice made the project gel.
Also, multimedia editor Dave Polcyn, Rob Hardin, Jayson Molyet and Dan Melograna proved tireless as idea men, artists and photographers; their work made Vision Quest shine. The total pros on the copy desk, especially senior editor and designer Melissa Ramaley as well as Steve Goble, Gere Goble and Russ Kent, turned a massive amount of copy, art, graphics and information into the kind of sophisticated, yet reader-friendly project any major daily would be proud of.
Finally, Vision Quest wouldn't have become the News Journal's all-time most profitable, best-selling and influential special project if not for the insights, connections, good will and inexhaustible reporting and writing of our reporters. Every single one of them -- ace news hounds Jami Kinton and Erik Shilling, Linda Martz on the city beat, schools reporter Mark Caudill, business reporter Lou Whitmire, GA reporter Terricha Bradley and the ever-game Al Lawrence as well as Curt Conrad, Rob McCurdy and Jon Spencer, who were pulled into the project from the sports desk -- made innumerable meaningful contributions to Vision Quest and brought such fire to the project, it proved inspiring both in the newsroom and in the community.
Included in section one of Vision Quest, "Our City," were the following stories:
"Road to recovery" by Erik Shilling; "A few cities Mansfield could learn from" by Teri Berg, who also put together the section-one feature "Mansfield's leading attributes; a ward-by-ward breakdown of neighborhood groups already working on Mansfield's revival efforts, called "Future built on collaboration," by Linda Martz, which featured a city map with breakouts highlighting work throughout the wards, designed by David Kennard; and the staff report "Area businesses: Half a dozen on the move" put together by Teri Berg and Holly Fackler.
Included in section two of Vision Quest, "Business," were the following features:
The 4,000-word economic roundtable discussion "Leaders ponder road to future" by Lou Whitmire; Teri Berg's "Whispers follow in wake of GM plant's closure," a rundown of companies rumored to be interested in setting up shop in the plant GM bolted from in February 2010 (story accompanied by Berg's photo illustrations); a collection of reader responses from the paper and website about ways Mansfield could improve, solicited and collected by Holly Fackler; and two stories by Erik Shilling -- "Energy of tomorrow in buildings of today," about a local company contracting with the US Defense Department to make next-generation fuel cells, and "Wind farm of one for Galion man."
Included in section three of Vision Quest, "Education," were the following in addition to Mark Caudill's lead story here:
"District's improvements could have ripple effect" by Mark Caudill; "Retaining talent without stifling dreams" and "Classroom technology expands young minds" by Terricha Bradley; and "Students at St. Bernard look to the future for state competition" by Jon Spencer, who also contributed a sidebar on students' ideas for improving Mansfield, called "Their take on what we can expect."
Included in section four of Vision Quest, "Community," in addition to Jami Kinton's examination of local nonprofits, were the following features:
"Think global, eat local" by Curt Conrad, who also designed a graph on the increasing numbers of farmers markets nationwide and added a breakout with info on local farmers markets; "Location, warehousing and transportation key for north central Ohio" and "Are emerging businesses part of the local agenda?" by Rob McCurdy; accompanying breakouts "Job Growth," "Fastest Growing Jobs" and "Top Service Industries" compiled by Teri Berg; and "North central Ohio bloggers play up the positive" by Al Lawrence, accompanied by "MNJ.com: A growing community," highlighting popular voices among bloggers contributing to the News Journal's website, and a local blog roll featuring sketches of local people blogging about a variety of subjects important to Mansfield -- both by Holly Fackler.
