Akron's Daily Miracle: Reporting the News in the Rubber… (2024)

Having worked at this great newspaper for almost six years in the 1970s I wanted to read this account of it. Almost all of the content deals with the time following my departure in 1979 so most of it was about events and incidents I knew nothing about. Apparently its heyday was in the years before I got there and after I left. Ha! The low days of 1974-1979 can be placed at my feet I guess.
I most enjoyed those chapters written by friends and acquaintances: Ann Sheldon Metzger (who by the the way, was indirectly responsible for me getting hired there), Bob Downing, Charlene Nevada (who mentioned me in her chapter), Roger Metzger, Kathy Fraze, Art Krummel, and Jim Carney. Like the others though, they mostly wrote about the period after I left. It was clearly a time, in the 1980s and 1990s when new editors and big ambition fueled the work being done and the big awards (two Pulitzers) being won. I’m proud to say I once worked there.
I went on to work at three more newspapers before hanging up my reporter’s notebook and packing my clips to molder in the closet. But I learned a lot in my five-plus years in Akron. As decimated as it is now, I hope those working there now can remain aware of its once-great glory days.

This is a collection of essays from former Akron Beacon Journal staff (plus material from former staff of a local radio station and the former local television station.) This is not going to be an unbiased review since I know (or at least know of) most of the people who wrote columns for this collection. It's a bittersweet read. One, you get a look at what used to be versus how things are now. Reading about what newspapers used to be able to do and the staff that used to run the paper is depressing. Also, several of the writers here have since died- one of them, Art Krummel, died earlier this year. I've known him and his wife Char for several years. I've also worked with a couple of the writers (albeit only briefly). This is a wonderful and unique perspective of Akron's history from some of the area's best storytellers, people who often had a front-row seat in covering the major events in Akron (and even beyond). My overwhelming thought reading this was that if someone is putting together a time capsule, this book needs to be included. The overarching book tells the history of the Beacon Journal, from its days when it was owned by the Knights to the present day. I do like the addition of information regarding the now lost radio station and local television station. It was also a trip down memory lane for me- I recall a lot of the signature pieces and work when it first came out, such as A Question of Color. Anyone interested in Akron's local history should get this book.