Thursday, August 02, 2012

When did they become the Cincinnati Inquirer?

I understand that the Cincinnati Enquirer is changing to a tabloid size print edition, but when are they changing their name to the Cincinnati Inquirer? They might as well do that if they are going to print crap like this story about Council member Chris Seelbach.

This story has no point. It is reporting gossip from the comments from the online news article and then tries to link that to facts to point to no conclusion, but to embarrass someone who was just the victim of a crime. Seelbach was disorientated and had a broken foot and 'people' are 'upset' he mentioned he was a member of council a few times to the 911 operator. Gee, maybe the man who attacked him was doing so because he was a member of council, the first openly gay council member. Did that fact run across the reporter's mind? Instead they sought to trace

To top it off, they got a quote from Mark Miller. Seriously, the lone guy who allegedly lives in Hyde Park from COAST is a relevant source for this story? How? Please, someone tell me what caused the reporter to reach into a big pile of irrelevant sources and pulled out Mark Miller's name. If the Enquirer wants to play the tawdrily game it is playing, I hope they asked Miller where he was Monday Night. Instead they gave a political foe of Seelbach the chance to gloat and make fun of him for being the victim of a crime. That sounds like the COAST I know, too bad the Report is either ignorant of COAST or shares the desire to allow COAST's gossip to make it to print. His point wasn't even valid, he was comparing this to Laketa Cole incident where she was with a person being ticketed. Seelbach was clearly the victim of a crime, he did nothing wrong. Miller is trying to damage him and the Enqurier, and the reporters, let him take a shot. There didn't appear to be an editor around to stop this either.

Also, why did they story include a sentence that mentioned where Miller lived? They quoted another people, but didn't state where they lived. What was the relevance? Is it actually true that he lives in Hyde Park?

Finally, they Enquirer again created another false equivalency. The only way to find any sense in this story is to view it as reporting an online flame war. The Enquirer got juicey quotes from both political sides and falsely feels they reported a fair and balanced story. The problem is that this isn't a political story. This is a crime story. Why not write about the crime? Write about what the police know or don't know. We don't need to have stories about Facebook comments. We really could use some news stories that would require the reporters to leave the newsroom.

6 comments:

  1. This is outrageous.

    The Enquirer "story" was partially written by Jane Prendergast, who is COAST's chief shill at the Enquirer. Finney says jump, Jane asks how high. Just take a look at COAST's twitter feed from yesterday and look at the back and forth between Miller & Prendergast.

    COAST and one of of their members is stalking Councilman Seelbach. Look at the first story in the Enquirer Politics Now blog yesterday and you will see a fake name & Facebook account in the name of Marcus Polk, who made nearly 40 comments on that article attacking Mr. Seelbach. "Marcus" is in fact COASTer Jeff Capell. Capell then wrote a late night entry attacking Seelbach on his republicans4highertaxes blog, and then proceeded to taunt Mr. Seelbach via twitter until the wee small hours of the morning:

    3:53AM Jeff Capell ‏@JeffCapell
    Chris Seelbach should spend less time judging those who eat at #ChickFilA and more time checking his own embarrassing behavior.

    2:45AM Jeff Capell ‏@JeffCapell
    Oh no City Councilman Chris Seelbach blocked me! I'm crushed to be blocked by a City Councilman. He's a City Councilman. #CityCouncilman

    10:30PM Jeff Capell ‏@JeffCapell
    City Councilman @ChrisSeelbach is a City Councilman on Cincinnati City Council, if you didn't know. #CityCouncilman

    Jeff Capell works as an economist for the US Department of Labor in Cincinnati. He continually tweeted and blogged throughout the work day when he was supposed to be employed by the Taxpayers. This man (and I use that term loosely) is supposedly a conservative who is in favor of responsible government spending and eliminating government waste, spending and cutting government employees, all the while being one himself, and a lazy, irresponsible government employee at that. Holy hypocrisy! Mr. Capell is a sick, demented psychopath who doesn't even have the courage to attack others under his real name. Hopefully Mr. Seelbach will file charges for stalking and telecommunications harassment against Jeff Capell today with the Cincinnati Police and the City Prosecutor's office.

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  2. PS: Jeff Capell is now commenting on the current Enquirer article and attacking Mr. Seelbach under his other fake Facebook account name "Bob Moody". "Bob" supposedly works at "at Economystic Extraordinaire". That fake account is completely obvious to one and all Jeff. I urge everyone that reads this to go to the facebook pages of Marcus Prost and Bob Moody and report them to Facebook for being fake accounts under assumed names, which is a violation of Facebook policy.

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  3. This was a pretty pointless story but how else could you justify a quote from Miller?
    From listening to the 911 call, the bigger question, to me, was, Why was the police operator so hopeless on determining Seelbach's location?

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  4. Why is Jeff Capell so completely obsessed with Chris Seelbach? Aside from the fact that Seelbach is both gay and a liberal there seems to be something more to Capell's infatuation with Seelbach. We know that the most ardent homophobes are inveriably gay themselves, so did Capell have the hots for Seelbach, who wouldn't give him the time of day? Or is Capell so hateful of his own closeted desires that it causes him to act out in such a disfunctional and hateful manner?? When Jeff Capell turns out to be just like Kevin Spacey's crazed and closeted neighbor from American Beauty it will suprise nobody.

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  5. Griff - So what upsets you so? I realize one of your main focuses in life is to promote the 'downtown' part of the City and OTR.

    The man was apparently mugged after coming from a downtown bar. I did not listen to the 911 tape...this does not interest me.

    Are you upset that the Enquirer wrote the story because the man was a bit drunk? Becaue he was mugged downtown and you preach to all who will listen how safe the area is? Or are you upset because they stated he was gay...which I did not know nor do I care?

    When this happens to a council person in the downtown area it's not news?

    You are probably too young to know what the downtown area of the City once was...many years ago, and how many really nice neighborhoods there were within the City that have now been trashed. Need I state who has trashed them?

    My wife and I lived within the City for 35 years. She still works downtown and has for 45 years. My career changes took me to areas which were out of the City.

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  6. Unknown,
    This was a 2nd story that was about nothing but gossip. That's what I am criticizing.

    Apparently, you've not been reading my blog as I have been writing it for over Ten years now. I lived in the city for 18 years and the SW Ohio area for 22 years. I'm not too young to have known what the Downtown area was like, because other than a couple of days during the April 2001 riot, Downtown has been safe. It's not Disneyworld. Find me a City that is Disneyworld and you would have found the worst place on the planet to spend more than a day, or as long aa a book of E tickets would last you.

    The City is an amazing place, I think you made a mistake for leaving it, especially after 35 years.

    I think you need to state who trashed these allegedly trashed neighborhoods you are referencing. I really hope you are not going to be another ignorant racist who fled the city because of Black people. That would be sad, but not surprising. Your comment lends to little else, other than a claim of reference to the poor, but when it comes to the city and poor, a non-white face is put there by most people.

    If you did indeed leave because of black people moving into your neighborhood, I will glad say Good riddance!

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