COLUMN: Biggest Marcellus Shale story of the year not being told – Part One

ByDick Miller

WE CONNECT DOTS:  The most important local news story of the year throughout Western PA is hardly being told by the media.
The impact of drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus and Utica shale formations is changing the economy north of Pittsburgh nearly to City of Erie. Understaffed news operations – paper and airwaves – headed by unknowing editors and directors are not even making an attempt to cover the drilling boom. This is a major change in the way outside money filters into local wallets, purses, bank accounts, service and sales businesses.
If the story is not real news or too difficult to report, don’t tell that to Andrea Wood.
Her Business Journal published in Youngstown is a fascinating story of media growth, professionalism and tenacity to details.
Wood has been the publisher of the Business Journal, owned by the Youngstown Publishing Company since the first edition was published in 1984. A journalist with philosophy and ambition framed by Bernstein and Woodward of Watergate fame, she arrived in this area in 1974.
An anchorwoman on Channel 33, under the pseudonym Bette Jeanne Webb, the fiery redhead grew tired of covering organized crime and plant closings. Wood began the Business Journal on her kitchen table in 1984 while still working at the TV station.

Two years later, aided by angels that not only included investors (one her late father) but a lawyer, business manager and talented journalists who also bought stock, she formed the Youngstown Publishing Company, now owner of the Business Journal. The Business Journal is one of the few remaining independent metro business publications in the United States. American City Business Journals owns similar publications in 40 major cities throughout the United States.
As CEO of a niche newspaper only published twice a month, the now more matronly Wood is the most effective journalist in this region. As a TV anchor, she relied on her aggressiveness, looks and charm to land a good story. Today, her knowledge of the subject and an endless list of contacts add up to news scoop after scoop.

Two years ago Wood realized drilling for natural gas in Eastern Ohio was going to change the local economy. It would change the way people live, create hopes and aspirations and literally make dirt-poor people rich.
She decided the Business Journal was going to cover this “big” story, for as long as it took. The printed edition will typically have about a half dozen feature stories about drilling. Seasoned writers such as Dennis LaRue, George Nelson and Dan O’Brien pen most of the stories.
The printed edition is published twice a month reaching 45,000 readers. An online edition (www.businessjournaldaily.com) is relied on by 30,000 and often features stories with subject content not carried in the less frequent paper edition.
According to promotional material, a daily webcast, the “Daily Buzz,” is posted at the Journal’s website and viewed daily by 10,000 high-income business and community leaders. Stacia Erdos, former news anchor at Channel 11, Pittsburgh, is producer and lead newsperson on the “Daily Buzz.”
Daily headlines are sent via email every morning to 5,500 subscribers.
At the beginning of 2012 a contract between Youngstown Publishing and Cumulus Media provides business news from the Journal to four major radio stations in the Youngstown area. Daily broadcasts about business activities reach 192,000 listeners over 30 counties in Ohio and PA.
The Business Journal also is contracted to provide business news on at least one other radio station.
At the same time the Cumulus contract began, the Business Journal launched a 2012 editorial focus on “Drilling Down: The Marcellus and Utica Shale Plays.”
Three months ago, I asked Wood if coverage of shale activities could include Western PA. She said the Business Journal did not have the resources. Drilling in the two shales doesn’t follow state boundaries. I suggest you spend $42 for a print subscription. Assume most of what is happening in Eastern Ohio will also occur in Western PA.

Click in next week for more information on the biggest local news story of the year, even if no one has yet published it.