Forbes says patient is dying without making a house call

Forbes says patient is dying without making a house call

“Despite a decade of national prosperity, the former manufacturing backbone of the U.S. is in rougher shape than ever, still searching for some way to replace its long-stilled smokestacks,” Forbes magazine solemnly informs us. And, frankly, there is little in that statement with which we would disagree.

Our problem is that the statement was made as part of a Forbes story on “America’s Fastest-Dying Cities” that promised more than it delivered.

“Where’s it worst? Ohio, according to our analysis,” Forbes goes on to say, “which racked up four of the 10 cities on our list: Youngstown, Canton, Dayton and Cleveland.”

There’s an old saying about figures lying and liars figuring that we’re tempted to apply here, except we have no reason to believe that Forbes has a reason to lie. All the magazine wanted to do was put together a quick little story, accompanied by stock photos of old neighborhoods and abandoned steel mills, that reinforces the national perception that people on the East Coast, the West Coast, the Sunbelt, the Bible Belt — almost anywhere — are better off than those poor folk trapped in the Rust Belt.

Mission accomplished, Forbes.

But there’s one little problem. As Mayor Jay Williams pointed out, Forbes never bothered to send anyone to Youngstown to put some flesh and bones on its skeletal story.

The magazine took a handful of statistics available from the U.S. Census Bureau and composed its list. Dave Letterman puts almost as much effort into his Top 10 list on any given week night.

Part of the story

We could comb through some NFL statistics and determine which is the best team in football, but that wouldn’t mean that team won the Super Bowl. A quick example: The team that scores the most points during a season should be right up there among the best, shouldn’t it? But in the last eight years, the Super Bowl winner ranked anywhere from third to 18th in points scored. Statistics tell part of a story, but they don’t necessarily predict those who win or those who lose (or those who live and those who die.)

Forbes may proclaim Ohio the “worst” state in seeking to find something to replace its smokestacks, but last year, Site Selection magazine gave Ohio its Governor’s Cup for the state with the most new and expanded corporate facilities.

Now granted, Site Selection magazine is no Forbes magazine. We doubt that it gets more than $100,000 a page for advertising, as Forbes does. And we suspect its publishers haven’t been able to indulge a passion for lighter-than-air flight by plastering “Site Selection” on a balloon or pursue an interest in politics by running for president. But the Atlanta-based magazine has been around for 54 years and it does circulate to 44,000 executives involved in corporate site selection. So its word on how bad-off Ohio is ought to be worth something.

We’re not trying to gild the lily. Obviously the Youngstown area has economic development problems. But it also has assets (and there are more of those to take photos of than there are smokeless steel mills). There are success stories: From the big stories such as the Youngstown Business Incubator and Turning Technologies to the smaller stories, such as Solid Axle Industries, which was featured in yesterday’s Vindicator.

If Forbes is going to say we’re all dying here, it should have the decency to look us in the eye first.