Why Is The Dispatch Such A Disservice?

As many of you know, I spent the last ten years everywhere but Ohio. I had the honor of serving on active duty in the Navy which took me to Chicago, California, Spain, France, Turkey, The Bahamas, Greece, Croatia, Malta, Italy, and many more places.

When I had the opportunity to move my family home to Columbus I took it. Thankfully there was employment in the private sector here doing what I love.


A lot has changed in Columbus. This pace has gone from the wanna-be town between Cincinnati and Cleveland and has become a city that is the envy of the Midwest. If you are chuckling, then you have never left C-Bus.

Columbus has a great nightlife and entertainment line up regularly, amazing parks and recreation, a wide variety of housing for all income levels, some of the greatest colleges and universities in the Midwest and being that it is demographically representative of the nation, more restaurants and market trials of new products than you can shake a stick at.

With all of this has come business and lots of it, When I was younger, all anyone talked about was going to college (most likely OSU, Miami or OU if you went to Worthington like me) and getting the hell out of Ohio, Columbus in particular. Today, that is not the case.

More companies boast about being in Columbus like the Limited Group, Express Fashion, Cardinal Health, Battelle, and on and on. More young professionals chose to stay in Columbus or seek out Columbus more than any other city in Ohio and more than most in the Midwest. The fact is, this one time Cow town that was nothing more than the home of OSU is now a Business leader. And how is this reflected in the Columbus Dispatch? With over eight pages of Life & Arts and pages of Sports that has the ONE PAGE of business news. Wow. That is a sad statement if I have ever seen one.

I used to live in the Hampton Roads section of Virginia. Over 70% of the economy was based on the Military and the local rag, The Virginian-Pilot has a Business section that is over 5 times the size of the Dispatch.

When people come to Columbus to interview for jobs or decide if they want to establish or expand their business in Columbus, I guarantee they pick up the Dispatch. What does it tell them? I guess it says if you want play college ball, you are in the right place. Beyond that… Well let’s just say the Dispatch does a disservice to the tens of thousands of business people who do not run a 4-40 or do not have tickets to the horse shoe.

One page Business section? Dispatch, you are a Disgrace.