Eric Flack vs. Reality

Brian beat me to the punch with respect to Channel 5's hit-piece on downtown progress earlier this week. I really wanted to pull the "news story" apart piece-by-piece, but just don't have the time (and besides, I think its unfairness is manifest). I thought I'd point out my favorite part, though.

At one point, Flack suggests that few people stay downtown after attending a Reds game. To support this, he approaches a twenty-something-looking couple with a baby (who appeared to be six to nine months-old at most), coming out of GABP. Flack reports the time to be about 10:00. The couple says they're headed home. For Flack, that's good enough, quod erat demonstrandum.

What? At 10:00 at night, a couple with a small baby isn't going to stay downtown? They're not going to the Cadillac Ranch to set the little tyke on the bull for a ride? If downtown isn't the place for six-month-olds to hang out until the wee hours of the morning, then there's no hope at all for the future of the Queen City. (I've never really understood parents that take children that young to night games, anyhow, but that's for another post.)

Finally, why didn't Flack's piece show pictures of places where people are? On a temperate evening, for instance, on the patio of the Cadillac Ranch? Lined up to get into Bang on Fourth Street (in fairness, I think one of his shots showed the valet line at the end of the night)? On Fountain Square?

WLWT is apparently taking its "fair and balanced" cues from Fox News.

UPDATE: Just to be clear, this post discusses the Flack-attack that was on the 11:00 news. I hadn't yet seen the piece archived on WLWT's website (which apparently aired somewhere in the 5:00-6:30 local news marathon). While the linked piece is a little more balanced than what aired at 11:00, it's still laughable that Flack seems astonished that there's not much police presence at 2:00 am in a stretch of downtown that a) isn't residential and b) doesn't have any businesses that are open in the evening (that section, in fact, is mostly law offices, with a few eateries that cater to the courthouse crowd, notably absent at three in the morning).