Small-Batch T-Shirts and Popcorn Bags: How a Local Ohio News Site Is Diversifying Its Business Model

Mansfield, Ohio’s story is a common one. The Rust Belt city, located about halfway between Cleveland and Columbus, has endured many of the same economic troubles that other industrial Midwestern cities are facing as manufacturing jobs disappear.   But Mansfield is more than its industrial decline. In 2013, Carl Fernyak, the CEO of local printer and copier supplier MT Business Technologies, founded Richland Source, a for-profit online news site covering Mansfield and the surrounding Richland County.