-Ben Wolford Today I’m excited to introduce our first milestone with the launch of our improved website along with Portage County’s first locally owned online discussion board, the Portager Forum. You now have a friendly and free place to comment on the news, share your events, give feedback to our team and debate local topics.
-Ben Wolford
There’s a scene in Civil War that scared me more than all the horrors of modern weapons and merciless war crimes. If you haven’t seen the movie, don’t worry, what I’m about to say doesn’t spoil anything.
-Ben Wolford
After our experience in December with weekly newspaper delivery, we’ve realized this schedule isn’t feasible for The Portager. Starting this month, we’ll be sending The Portager out every other week instead.
-Ben Wolford
We’ve made significant progress toward the launch of weekly print home delivery. Below you’ll find information about our progress, next steps and what to do if you already paid for a print subscription and wondering where your papers are.
-Ben Wolford
It’s been a while since I’ve shared an in-depth look at The Portager’s progress and future plans. And with so much in the works, I want to bring you up to speed.
-Ben Wolford
Unlike most news organizations, our mission statement doesn’t explicitly mention reporting the news. Sure, journalism is what we do. But I see it as a means to an end.
-Ben Wolford
There were so many big stories in Portage County in 2022. There have been fires and tragedies of all sorts. The kinds that can hit the soul of a community and bring people together. And lots of moving acts of solidarity and courageous leadership.
-Ben Wolford
I need to confess some deep and belated gratitude to the small businesses, nonprofits, political candidates, churches, agencies and individuals who have helped make The Portager what it is.
-Ben Wolford
On Friday, I announced we are considering starting newsletters in nearby cities and asked for your input on which ones. A portion of our readers live just outside of Portage County, and we received useful feedback from them.
-Ben Wolford
If you want to know whether The Portager and the people who read it are having an impact in Portage County, just ask any elected official or nonprofit organization. You are making your influence felt through your emails, calls and, crucially, through your donations to the areas that need support the most.
-Ben Wolford
We’re now seeking a general assignment reporter to help us deliver high-impact stories about the people and institutions who shape the character of our community. We’re not looking for someone who can do it all — the county is much too big for that. Instead, we need an experienced reporter who can identify subjects our readers will care about, find answers and deliver solutions-oriented articles that have the potential to make Portage County a better place to live.
-Ben Wolford
On Friday, I asked Portager readers if they have a paid subscription or not. If the answer was no, I asked people if they would like to share the reason.
-Ben Wolford
To power our ability to provide more high-quality journalism to every corner of our community, we are seeking a director of growth and sales to professionalize our business development operation and establish The Portager as an unshakable public service institution in Portage County.
-Ben Wolford
The first time I heard about Covid-19, I put it in my mental file for Asian viruses that did not affect my life. SARS, swine flu, MERS and so on. The outbreaks came and went. Even ebola stayed put. I had such an impoverished understanding of contagion. Didn’t we all?
-Ben Wolford
One of the nice things about local news is that it helps us to remember how far we’ve come. Without a chronicle of the time and place we inhabit together, it would be easy to think we collectively accomplished very little this year.
-Ben Wolford
When people talk about “being thankful,” they’re always talking about something you should do individually. Send thank-you cards. Make a list of things you’re grateful for. Each Thanksgiving, studies reappear to remind us thankfulness has health benefits.
-Ben Wolford
Hey Portagers! Over the last week, I’ve received nervous messages from readers mentioning the abrupt closure of The Devil Strip, a news startup that has done for Akron what we’re creating for Portage County. That won’t happen to us, right? The answer is no.
-Ben Wolford
That’s what seems to happen in Ravenna: We tear down the beautiful symbols of the city’s former ambitions and put up cheap, functional boxes, like the county courthouse. Or we replace them with parking lots.