By Aleasha Sandley, Herald Bulletin Staff Writer
aleasha.sandley@heraldbulletin
ANDERSON - The city's attempt to avoid becoming a General Motors ghost town has earned it national and international attention in recent weeks, this time for the strides it has made instead of previous reports that GM's departure had doomed it.
The city will be featured on the "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric," in a second New York Times article in the last month and on a Swiss television station, city spokeswoman Tammy Bowman said.
Much of the hype surrounds the city's new Nestlé USA plant, which celebrated its grand opening in March.
"It's a bit of a statement of where we are economically as a country when the creation of 400-500 jobs is national news," said CBS News Correspondent Seth Doane, who pitched the idea of featuring Anderson to the network. "For the town overall to feel as though a major company is coming in and making an investment is a good sign."
Anderson will be featured on the program's new "Bright Spots" segment, which airs periodically and highlights success despite the sagging economy.
"We've chronicled the downturn and all of us in the news business and all of us as Americans are looking for glimmers of hope," Doane said.
The CBS story will take a two-pronged approach in its study of Anderson, Doane said, the first the story of the city and its successful attempt to lure Nestlé after GM left and the second a closer look at local resident Cortni McCorkle, who got a job at Nestlé after being laid off from a GM supplier and putting herself through school.
"It's the story of this town that, when things were really bad, they said, 'We have no choice but to look forward and rebrand ourselves,'" Doane said. "It's looking at this town that needed to reinvent itself and this woman who also kind of retooled her skills and landed a job, which she says means security for her and her kids."
Doane and a producer were in Anderson this week, conducting interviews and gathering pictures of the city's past and future. The correspondent said he hoped the story would air next week on the evening program.
A New York Times reporter also was in town this week working on a story about receiving federal stimulus funds on a local level. The story will focus on President Barack Obama's first 100 days in office and use interviews with city officials as well as U.S. Rep. Mike Pence, Bowman said.
A Swiss television station filmed a program about Nestlé as well, coming to town earlier in the week. The company will give the city copies of the program in German, Italian and French, which city officials hope to use as an international economic development tool on their Web site, Bowman said.
She said the recent media attention has been a welcome change to the national coverage the city had received in the past, which generally focused on its downturn after the GM era.
"National media has visited Anderson a lot over the years, and a lot of times in the old visits it seems like the media was kind of fascinated with the dark story of the GM departure and job loss," she said. "We're far enough out from that dark story, they're becoming fascinated with the light at the end of the tunnel."
Bowman said Anderson could be used as an example for communities just now going through the pain of losing GM.
"We're a little bit ahead of the curve because of our history with GM, and other communities might just now be hitting the point where we hit 25 years ago," she said.
The city could not afford the kind of exposure it is getting from national media attention. After a recent "New York Times" article, economic development officials received at least three calls from East Coast companies interested in locating in Anderson.
We just have to be ready when the attention comes, and we're prepared for that," Bowman said.