As published in Toledo Business Journal - June 1, 2010

YMCA exonerated by Ohio AG

Issues raised with The Blade’s campaign against Y

On May 6, The Blade ran a small article about the YMCA of Toledo. At the end of the article it stated, “Rob Koenig, chairman of the Y’s board of trustees, said state investigators during their visits complimented the YMCA on its well-organized bookkeeping, and issued no reprimands.” The article was placed on a page inside the second section of the newspaper and the headline was small.

This low visibility coverage of the YMCA was in stark contrast to coverage of the organization by The Blade during the past year.

In 2009, The Blade put significant effort into demanding that an investigation be conducted of the YMCA’s finances. In an editorial on September 1, 2009, The Blade stated, “An independent investigation of the finances and operations of the YMCA & JCC of Greater Toledo is too important to get snarled in Toledo mayoral politics.”

The editorial went on to describe a review of the YMCA’s finances as “a vital investigation.”

In 2009, The Blade was successful in getting the community to spend day after day and month after month focusing on the YMCA. Many other critical problems facing the region were reduced in priority in the newspaper as it led an effort to have the community place its attention on the YMCA.

If the need for this investigation was truly as important as The Blade indicated in its September 1, 2009 editorial and if The Blade was being truthful with its readers when it described a review of the YMCA’s finances as “a vital investigation,” why were the results of the investigation by the Ohio Attorney General’s office given such low visibility in the newspaper?

Why was the article positioned inside the second section across from the obituaries? Why did the newspaper choose to use a headline font smaller than all other headlines on the page? Why were no graphics or photos used to draw reader attention to this article?

A recent letter to the editor was published in The Blade on May 12 concerning the newspaper’s coverage of the YMCA. It stated, “How is this fair coverage, when the allegations repeatedly make front-page headlines and the exoneration is buried back by the obituaries?

“The real story here is that there is no story, and never was.”

During 2009, why did The Blade go to such great efforts in what was a clear campaign against the YMCA?

In past issues of Toledo Business Journal, a series called Personal Vendetta Exposed was published. It can be viewed at www.toledobiz.com. The series shared with readers that Blade publisher and editor-in-chief, John Robinson Block, used the newspaper to accomplish a personal vendetta against individuals and organizations that did not obey his orders. The series documented, in detail, the activities and events involving some of Block and The Blade’s vendetta campaigns designed to destroy the reputations of community leaders and community organizations.

Was The Blade series that attacked the YMCA day after day objective and ethical journalism, or was it another example of the newspaper being used by Block and The Blade to accomplish a personal vendetta against individuals and an organization that did not obey their orders?

During the past ten years, there has been a series of attacks appearing in The Blade on the YMCA. These attacks began to appear in the newspaper after the leadership of the YMCA failed to follow the specific direction given by Block and The Blade.

Block and The Blade made clear their orders about a downtown health club and the YMCA’s involvement. In an editorial on March 4, 1999, the newspaper stated, “And where is the leadership of the Toledo YMCA, which should be at the forefront of the movement to attract a new facility downtown?…

“The Y was derelict in its responsibility to Toledo when, in 1980, it disinvested in the downtown and closed its club at Jefferson Avenue and 11th Street and moved to the suburbs – with funding help from the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority, which should have extracted a commitment from the Y to stay downtown…

“The Y, above all organizations, should understand that a functioning downtown needs a health club. It’s that simple. So instead of excuses, let’s have action from the administration, the hospitals, and the Y. No more PR gobbledygook. Forget the marketing studies…

“Downtown Toledo will continue to be seen as second-rate, as lacking basic amenities, until a full-service health club is established within its core, one that includes a pool, stays open well into the night, and is easily walkable from the downtown core…

“Enough excuses. Enough procrastinating. Get it done.”

This editorial made Block and The Blade’s specific orders to the YMCA clear. The editorial was specific on the location for a new health club downtown. It had to be in walking distance from the “downtown core”(Was this The Blade’s office location on North Superior Street?), it had to stay open late at night, and it had to have a swimming pool.

Following this Blade editorial, YMCA officials did move to take over the management of the health club facility on the former Riverside Hospital campus when Mercy decided to move its facility to west Toledo. The Riverside campus health club is only 0.8 miles from The Blade’s offices in downtown Toledo. A decision was also made to move YMCA’s corporate offices into this location.

YMCA leadership invested over $500,000 in this facility on the Riverside Hospital campus. Convenient parking made this health club location an advantage for members working downtown. The former Riverside Hospital facility also permitted the YMCA to support the economically disadvantaged north Toledo neighborhood adjacent to Toledo’s central business district.

Unfortunately for the YMCA, the 0.8 mile distance of the Riverside facility to The Blade’s office on North Superior Street does not appear to have met the specific orders given by Block and The Blade that a new health club be “easily walkable from the downtown core.”

Following the Riverside health club decision by the YMCA leadership, The Blade began its attacks on the organization. The newspaper obtained important assistance from former Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner. Last year, it obtained assistance from Lucas County Commissioner Ben Konop. These attacks have continued for over ten years now.

After The Blade attacks began, YMCA management did examine a number of alternatives for putting a health club in the middle of Toledo’s central business district. However, YMCA leadership felt that a second location in downtown Toledo and/or the economics of a central business district facility was not a proper use of the organization’s resources.

This background is important to understand when examining the coverage by The Blade last year.

The Blade’s campaign against the YMCA during 2009 and its call for an investigation of the YMCA’s finances was just one more in a series of attacks in what has been a decade long undertaking. A combination of articles and editorials attacking the YMCA has taken place since the organization failed to follow the specific orders given by Block and The Blade concerning the location of a new downtown health club.

The Blade’s effort to give low visibility to the May 6 article that provided positive news about the Ohio Attorney General’s exoneration of the YMCA’s finances is consistent with its practices against the YMCA for the past decade.

In focusing the community’s attention on the YMCA day after day and month after month in 2009, The Blade called for this “vital investigation.”

It now appears that it was a “vital investigation,” not to serve the interests of the citizens and taxpayers of Ohio, but instead, the interests of The Blade in conducting its campaign against the YMCA.

The courage of the YMCA’s leadership in refusing to construct a second health club in close proximity to the The Blade’s offices in downtown Toledo is clear evidence that the organization was protecting the resources for which it was responsible.

Should the YMCA receive recognition for standing up to this pressure from Block and The Blade that would have wasted these scarce community resources?

When will leaders in the region confront Block for using the daily newspaper to conduct personal vendettas at the expense of coverage concerning critical community issues?