Impact of ABJ's journalism on full display in our community

The power of the words and images on these pages and online never ceases to amaze me.

From a simple Local Flavor restaurant feature leading to a surge of business at that establishment to donations pouring in for community efforts, local news coverage in the Akron Beacon Journal and BeaconJournal.com consistently creates a measurable community impact.

The examples range from the simple to the complex, including numerous revelations from our reporters that impacted the community's conversations about the Jayland Walker police shooting case.

From the editor: Why local journalists matter in Akron and every community

During 2022, we began to more closely track our impact to better illustrate the importance of our local journalism, which is made possible by the support of our print and digital-only subscribers.

We strive to serve the community through fair and independent journalism that shares important factual information, holds the powerful accountable and engages the community in important conversations about our collective future.

A great example of fulfilling that mission came when education reporter Jennifer Pignolet in July broke a story about a less than flattering evaluation of Akron Public Schools Superintendent Christine Fowler-Mack. The highly critical document sparked a community conversation about the school board and district leadership, with one leader calling the review "character assassination." Fowler-Mack has now resigned.

We also focused heavily on coverage of three fatal Akron police shootings, especially the Jayland Walker case that sparked weeks of protests and a citizen-led ballot initiative to form a new police review board.

Our revelatory reporting on this tragedy began with a report on the personnel files of the eight officers who shot Walker 46 times as he fled from his car on June 27. We were able to chronicle the still publicly unnamed officers' backgrounds, police experience and prior uses of force, greatly expanding the public's knowledge of those involved.

We've also filed a lawsuit against the city of Akron and police department for redacting the names of the officers in those personnel files, which the newspaper believes violates Ohio's public records laws. The city's initial legal response was filed Thursday in the Ohio Supreme Court. As stated before, we may not name the officers, but we want Akron to follow the law.

Lawsuit filed: Beacon Journal asks Ohio Supreme Court to order release of Akron police records

Our efforts also included securing the release of police body camera videos beyond those required by an Akron ordinance. In August, the release of videos from after the shooting raised new questions about officers stating "go blue" and turning off their body camera microphones. Additional police videos obtained by the Beacon Journal showed a gun laying on the front seat of Walker's vehicle.

Getting Akron officials to release these public records has required extensive work by our legal counsel, which also has assisted us in efforts to secure records from the Akron Public Schools.

Other examples of the impact of our work are less serious albeit important.

Grieving mother receives son's belongings

Rebecca Shepherd flew to California to pack up the belongings of her adult son, who died unexpectedly, and then paid $600 to FedEx to have them shipped back to her Akron home.

But the packages didn't arrive. They had been delivered to the wrong address the next street over. FedEx didn't help retrieve the packages and Shepherd, who is dying of stage 4 ovarian cancer, did not feel safe doing so herself. She called our consumer columnist, Betty Lin-Fisher.

We called FedEx, but still the packages didn't arrive as promised, so we tracked them down and the homeowner volunteered to take them to her — 50-pound boxes full of her late son's belongings.

Coverage sparks donations

Victim Assistance, an agency that serves crime victims, was creating a kids' room in Summit County Domestic Relations Court where kids can wait while their parents are in court hearings. The agency didn't have enough funding for items and started an Amazon shower to outfit it.

After we ran a story, the agency received an outpouring of support, with people generously buying diapers and snacks as well as fun activities like games and books.

Similarly, Dana Rosser and her two siblings donated money from their late father's golf scholarship fundraiser to the revived high school program at Buchtel.

Rosser said she and her siblings got the idea for the donation by reading a Beacon Journal feature about Buchtel restarting its boys golf team after 19 years.

And after Stephanie Warsmith wrote about Rosita Diaz, whose 10-year-old son was found dead in an Akron park in 2004, community members took up a collection and had a memorial bench made for the park.

Years later Rosita, who now lives in Wellsville, learned that the bench was missing and no one knew what had become of it. We wrote another story and an Akron company offered to make a new bench.

Mark Price helps solve old mysteries

History columnist Mark J. Price found tremendous success connecting people and solving historic mysteries.

Debi Foss, whose father died in the 1964 Tallmadge Parkway cave-in, said a Beacon Journal article Price wrote led to a $10,000 goal for a memorial being reached in only two days.

After a Price column sought to identify ceramic containers found during a construction project, readers traced the mysterious object to Akron inventor Peter J. Layman. After digging through the internet, they produced the U.S. patent and blueprints for The Layman, a “jar closure.”

Readers also helped Price solve the mystery of an engraved rock in a Tallmadge woman's yard. "The ‘rock’ is actually a refractory brick made by Harbison-Walker Refractories (H-W),” reader Bill Winters wrote.

Support local journalism

One of the more surprising and fulfilling impacts of our work was a reader's idea to hold a reunion of people displaced by the Akron Innerbelt decades ago.

Seyma Bayram's extensive enterprise report on the history of the innerbelt spurred the idea for the Aug. 28 event attended by many people who shared their stories. We were happy to co-sponsor the event and work with community partners to make it happen.

We don't know what 2023 will bring, but I can assure you Summit County's largest team of journalists will be working to make a difference.

If you're already a subscriber, thank you. If you're not, we urge you to support our efforts to serve the community and ensure local journalism thrives.

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Michael Shearer is editor of the Akron Beacon Journal. He can be reached at 330-996-3750 or mshearer@thebeaconjournal.com.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Akron Beacon Journal releases journalism impact report