Journal-Tribune reporter Mac Cordell works after hours at his desk, with help from his sons, Levi and Ben. (J-T photo by Chad Williamson)
The Marysville Journal-Tribune, and more specifically reporter Mac Cordell, are up for a pair of awards in Division I of the Ohio Associated Press Media Editors’ 2019 newspaper contest.
The newspaper’s series Stella’s Cloud, which was primarily the work of Cordell, is a finalist in the Best Public Service category. His coverage of a fatal trench collapse earlier in the year is also up for an award for Best Spot News Coverage.
Stella’s Cloud was a yearlong series of stories detailing the county’s surging suicide rate. It looked at the issue from a variety of angles and sources, from mental health professionals to the friends and families left behind. Readers may remember the particularly gripping sketch made by teen victim Stella Abel that accompanied all installments of the series. The sketch showed a dark, cloudy figure filled with hurtful words towering over a girl, while a much smaller figure filled with positive words reached for her from the side.
“Content like ‘Stella’s Cloud’ is difficult for us to produce, because reporters often get buried under more routine stories that must be finished,” Managing Editor Chad Williamson said. “The stories in the series took a long time to write, edit and revise.
“I would say Mac could have finished six or eight other stories in the time it took to produce the first installment in the series.”
In the end, the community’s crisis outweighed the need for other, more traditional stories.
“Our county was, and still is, bleeding under a wound of mental health,” Williamson said. “Our newspaper remains committed to initiating tough conversations on the topic.”
Williamson said the two, very different awards show Cordell’s versatility as a reporter. While Stella’s Cloud was a long, draining process that required heart and compassion, covering the fatal trench collapse at the hospital construction site was boots-on-the-ground journalism.
“Mac just did, what Mac always does,” Williamson said. “He hustled, poked his head in and started asking questions.”
Those questions led to the discovery that a safety device, called a trench box, was not in place at the time of the collapse, a factor eventually investigated by OSHA.
The awards in actual order of finish — first, second and third places — will be announced at the Ohio APME annual awards banquet May 9 in Columbus.