Enquirer In the Bag for Chick-Fil-A (and Conservative Readers)

Yes, you know who butters the Enquirer's bread, that would be the shrinking readership who are a majority conservative. The over-coverage of yesterday's Chick-Fil-A still avoid the fact that the LOCAL Chick-Fil-A Restaurants in West Chester and Deerfield Township sponsered a CCV event. Yes, CCV is the anti-gay rights group that fought for Article XII and against its repleal as well as lead the charge in the anti-gay rights anti-gay marriage ban that passed in Ohio. How does this not make the story?

Why doesn't the Enquirer report this?  Why are they making this boycott about free speech?  That's not what this is about, this is about the corporate actions of a company, not just the private views of the owners.  That contradicts the rants of conservatives, who want this to be about liberals being  "anti-Christian."

Enquirer Blog Falls into False Equivalency Trap

I know journalists often look at the political world and try to find two equally opposing viewpoints to compare and then pretend to be objective. That type of action is a false equivalency, see a description of what that is here. The problem is that most of the time, the viewpoints are not equal, they are not the same.

Take yesterday's Enquirer political blog story: Mixing food with politics: What do you think?. The blog post, wrapped around an online poll, tries to marry two topics together: 1) those boycotting Chick-Fil-A for providing financial support to anti-gay groups and 2) The mythical hoards of people who might no longer want to go the Montgomery Inn because the owners took a public political opinion in the Presidential race. The two don't equate. For many reasons:

1. One is real, the other is speculation.
2. One is a national effort and one is a mythical-hypothetical local situation.
3. One is about bigotry and the other is about political opinion.

Number three above is key.  The boycott of Chick-Fil-A, which I participate in, is about the financial support Chick-Fil-A gives to groups like the CCV, the Cincinnati area's own anti-gay bigoted hate group.  This is being treated as a political issue by many conservatives, not a moral issue, and that is the clear false equivalency being allowed to fester by the media.

If a national fast food chain were to sponsor a golf tournament for a white supremacist group, would anyone try to compare a boycott of that fast food chain to what the Montgomery is doing?  No, the media would instead help expose the fast food chain's actions.

Gay rights are civil rights and the CINCINNATI media needs to understand that issue better and more importantly get on the moral side of it.  If too many of your readers are anti-gay bigots, tough shit, be journalists, don't be accomplices in the oppression of gays and lesbians.

We have bigotry in this community happening out in the open and our media far too often lets is slide unnoticed, or in the case of the Enquirer, lets it slide all the time.

The other bad part of the article was that it was talking about an event supposed to take place yesterday where the Republican Governor of Oklahoma was coming to appear with one of the Owners of the Montgomery Inn at their Boathouse location on the river.  This event was a Mitt Romney "We Did Build This” campaign event pushing a lie about the President that falsely claims the President said that small business owners don't build their businesses alone, the government helps. That's not what the president said, but it is the story line that should have been asked of the Governor and the owners of the Montgomery Inn. They should have been asked: Who owns the building where the Boathouse Location resides? The answer is the City of Cincinnati, or as the website says "Cincinnati City Of." I don't think that question was asked, nor asked how much help the people of the City were back in the late 1980's to the suburban based company.  I am just wondering how much hypocrisy you get with a full slab of ribs?

So the Enquirer missed the real story and tried to create one that just wasn't true. Bad day for Journalism.

Why the One-sided Interview?

So the Enquirer's Mark Curnutte had an article called Social worker: Poor pushed from OTR with a subtitle of "5 QUESTIONS: Alice Skirtz". It includes a short introduction to Alice Skirtz and a book she's written. Then it has a really short Q/A, literally five questions, that has no depth what-so-ever on the subject she's writing about. She makes outlandish and unsupported claims in the answers she gives and no follow-up questions are published seeking evidence on what she claims to be true.

What gives?

Is this throwing a bone to a particular political activist group? Is this article a reward for something else? It is not customary to let anyone equate the actions of redeveloping a decaying neighborhood with genocide, calling it "econocide," without calling It insults those who are making the city a better place, and it sullies the memories of those who actually have died in acts of genocide.

This Five Questions concept could be one that I've not seen before, but really is off mark for a story a subject like this. When there is controversy on the validity of what an author writes, then five questions just does not do justice to the reader. We need far more or just skip the author and/or the subject. If you can do something right, please don't do half of it.

Great Idea For Outdoor Events

I am not sure if this was planned far in advance, but a great idea used during the World Choir Games was to use large fans at Fountain Square and other outdoor events.

These fans were stationed strategically around Fountain Square and cooled off choir members and city residents at Second Sunday on Main. When it is 95 or even 100 degrees, the mix of mist and wind brought comfort that not only felt good, it helped keep some people from heat stroke.

That is the real brand name, believe it or not. I don't know if these were rented or purchased, but I hope every summertime event in Cincinnati takes note and considers these in similar situations. Cooling stations are common at events, like Riverbend, but they have to be far away from the show, so as to not interfere with the music. At an event like the Square, music quality is not a big factor when the ticket price is free.  I hope to see these fans again.

Greg Landsman Running for Cincinnati City Council

The 2013 City Campaign is off and the first new candidate is Greg Landsman. Landsman is well known inside the Democratic party having worked for Ted Strickland, Nancy Pelosi, and David Pepper. In a year when there is one certain open seat (Thomas) and likely two if Qualls runs for Mayor, there is room for another Democrat and one that comes across more in the Moderate camp, based on the limited information on his website. When you make the following comment in your platform, you are not going for the Urbanest vote:

A renewed commitment to neighborhood growth. We can begin to focus more on our neighborhoods without undermining the progress we've made downtown, but it will take a smarter and more intentional approach.

That sounds like an appeal to the voters who elected P.G. and John Cranley in previous elections. It sets him apart from most of the other Dems and tactically is a logical position to find a way to win in a complicated city political demographic landscape.

Square v. Park, Terms Matter

Terminoligy is important to all societies. To the urban Cincinnti community we need to get a couple of things straight. When we say "The Square," we mean Foutain Square. When we say Park, here's the rub: we have a ton of parks. When I say Park, I am going to mean Washington Park. I don't mean to detract from Smale Park at the Banks, but in reference, I will refer to it as the Banks or the New Riverfront Park. That differs from Sawyer Point, or Yeatman's Cove. Washington Park I believe will be the premier event park in the city, so let's just cut to the chase and refer to it as "The Park."

I say this because people need to stop calling Washington Park "Washington Square" or worse yet "Wahington Square Park" when they remember the difference mid-conversation. We need to remember, words matter. I don't want my friends waiting for me at the foot of the Fountian when OTR Jake Speed are paying tonight.

Kathy Y. Wilson, Island of Trite

Year 2000 called and they want their argument back. I'll guess I should have just wait for the Black United Front's 12 year late press release before I wrote my blog post, but instead I going to look at the present and at reality.


I am reminded of a story I head once about Kabaka Oba, the late black-supremacist, who was protesting the performance of a play at the Know Theatre called Corpus Christi. He struck up a conversation with someone supporting the Theatre and they asked him if he had seen or read the play. He said no. They then asked Oba how could he honestly complain about the play if he had never seen or read the play. Kabaka Oba paused for a moment of thought, and said something like "you're right, I'm going to have to think about that." He then left and wasn't seen protesting the play again.

I guess the comments on the column are just rewards for this blatantly phoned in attempt to generate controversy. I understand that being a lesbian black woman would make me feel like I don't fit in anywhere in the far to often bigoted/racist world, but I wouldn't allow that to lead me to repetitive contrarianism.

I guess someone else at CityBeat doesn't just want a pony, she wants a blue pony and will stomp her feat until she gets it.