WKRC Has Dipped Themselves Into a Pile Skanky Goo

I guess ratings are down for WKRC since they aired this hot skanky mess of a story. Which was a follow-up to this other biased hunk of anti-downtown propaganda brought to you by exurbanite developers, who think like the Mayor.

Someone needs to tell Brad Underwood that Downtown and OTR are different places. Therefore, if you are going to do a story about attacks in the Central Business District (Downtown) go there, don't go to OTR for comment.

Cincinnati New Media Sorta Faux Punked?

So remember seeing the local news clips with a guy interrupting the live report in "Cincinnati" being lude, well it was a hoax and continues to be one. Pretty good details, however.

What Actions During the Campaign Got Osborne Hired by Cranley?

If you want the number one news article Kevin Osborne wrote during the campaign that would have clinched any alleged quid-pro-quo it would be this false story that was disproved rather easily by Osborne's old new outlet, CityBeat.

The second action Osborne gave Cranley was this follow-up story where he continued the Cranley attack on Qualls, disguised as allowing Qualls to respond. It is hardly balanced when a reporter expands on the attack in a story billed as a response to said attack.

The inaction Osborne provided his prospective employer during the campaign was keeping silent on why Cranley resigned from council.  I missed any reporting from Osborne on why Cranley waited nearly six months after he got the Ohio Ethics commission letter, telling him he had a conflict of interest, before he resigned from City Council.  One might figure Osborne, who was working for CityBeat at the time, would have reported on that and investigated it.  I guess he was too busy investigating how he would spin the 'exclusives' the Cranley Campaign was feeding him.

This hiring is beyond laughable, it is just pathetic.  Local media are reporting on it, but are not allowing their reporters to hit, at least not yet.  Any journalist who considers this ethical may need to revisit a few journalism basics.  Since there is evidence of Osborne throwing away any journalistic ethics he may have had out the window, no honorable journalist can hide behind any type of "blue line" code of protection for other journalists.  They also can not play the fear game, that Osborne can deny access.  Any threat Osborne, Kincaid, or even Cranley make to journalists is hollow.  More importantly, if they try to act on it, I think there are plenty of the nine members of Council that could easily nullify any attempt at Cranley retribution on a journalist.

What needs to happen most immediately is for the investigation into who leaked the Duke Memo to Kevin Osborne be restarted.  Osborne's connection to the Cranley Administration is more than clearly there. If WCPO knows the source of the moemo, they now have the ethical obligation to report it, if it came from anyone who would have had connection or influence over hiring Osborne for his new political job.

If anyone believes there is not smoke to the allegations of a quid-pro-quo to the Osborne hiring, they need to know something about the Cranley cabal, things like this don't happen in a vacuum.

OTR Is Still Operating

There may be freezing rain and an impending 'White Death' on the way, but OTR carries on. Here's the draft list for the Eagle today.

Cranley Makes Unsupported Claims About Police Response

In Sunday's article from the Enquirer "Is it time to change shift schedules for our cops?" the paper includes Cranley's unsupported claim about police response to 911 Calls:

“Code zeros” – the police code for instances when someone calls 911 for help but no officer is available to respond – are on the rise, Cranley has said

To the Paper's credit, they prove Cranley had no support for his claim:

The city, in fact, doesn’t track code zeros, said Cincinnati Police Chief Jeffrey Blackwell, so there’s no proof they’re happening more often.

The paper then falls into the Cranley bullshit by stating there is anecdotal evidence, but no empirical evidence. We don't even get any actual anecdotes, just third-party hearsay.

Why isn't the Enquirer calling out the Mayor for making unsubstantiated claims as the basis for increasing the city budget? Instead of treating what ever comes out of his mouth as truth, why not be as analytical as the rest of the article attempts to do with the issue of police schedules? Why not question Cranley about the schedules? Why not ask him how the decision by the previous police chief affected police response? Most importantly, ask Cranley how the hell he knows what he says is true before it is repeated in the paper, even if given evidence he doesn't have actual support for what he says. Using his false claim as the lead for one's article does two things: it gives credibility to Cranley when he deserves none an it makes the Enquirer yet again look like a shill for Cranley.  I mean, look at the lead listed on this page view of the Enquirer website, it is like you are giving Cranley a pass:

Cranley's false claim is put out there as 'fact' and the portion of the article that refutes him is buried.  So I guess being a shill for Cranley is part of the job description for Enquirer.  Well, at least WCPO isn't alone in that.

Enquirer Creates Click-Bait Blog Post a-la Buzzfeed

I don't think this will surprise anyone but the 24 people who commented on the blog post, but the Enquirer's blogpost over the weekend with the title Is Greater Cincinnati really miserable? is click-bait bullshit. The title implies the survey in question ranked cites (or maybe metro areas). In reality it "rated" States.

One can question the lousy article's methods and we should. The article, by Time but based on a Wall Street review of a Gallop Study (convoluted mess!) lists Ohio 5th and all of the stats it lists as examples don't rank in the top 5 worst. So, subjectivity or other randomness in the study of a study isn't valued, let alone trying to compares states on such a general basis.

The Enquirer's ICYMI blog then plays the role of Buzzfeed troll, looking to get hits (more page views) and it worked. Journalistic ethics be damned, however! Trying to push the city pride buttons by fraudulently including Cincinnati as the basis for a study is worthy of scorn and mocking. Getting readers falsely ginned up about something that does not reflect how the headline sold it is shameful and cruel.  If those responsible think they have any journalistic ethics, then they are greatly mistaken.

Meet the New Parking Plan, Worse Than the Old Parking Plan

As if you could possibly expect anything different from John Cranley, we get his plan or plan with options to "fix" the parking problem. It is a plan that looks and sounds like the plan the previous administration put forth last year, but it doesn't do as much and costs the city more. What he puts forth a plan that does the following:

1. Increase Debt by issuing bonds
2. Raise parking prices everyone but Downtown and OTR (how's that knife in the back feel Mr. Witte?)
3. Adds upgraded meters that WILL NOT interact online, meaning no payment via cell phone.
4. Adds more city employees to enforce parking without detail on how he will fund their full expense.

What did John Cranley Not Do:

1. Explain how issuing bonds creates annual revenue.  Is this a fancy way of saying they will just issue new bonds each year? Or is this an investment gimmick where he gets a big 'loan', invests it and calls the earnings on that investment revenue, while not talking about paying back the principle.
2. Who will pay back the bonds?  This seems like a rather big point.  Trying to pay for upgrades to garages and meters, adding new staff to bring in new revenue, raising parking rates that Cranley and his supports said would hurt the business community, thus lowering tax revenue, how does he plan on paying for this?  Is is going to just buy some Twitter Stock and pray it doubles in value every year until he leaves office?

Once again Cranley is, shall we be blunt, full of shit. He puts forth a worse version of the plan set forth previously one that does far less and costs the City far more, and he thinks he's doing something better?  A large portion of the Media lets him off the hook and more importantly we get SILENCE from those who fought the parking plan, the conservatives.  That prior plan basically privatized parking in the city, and conservatives were against it.  This new plan would increase the size of government and we haven't heard a peep.  Council member Murray, have you lost the will to speak out on parking?  Have you abandoned Hyde Park Square business owners?

Also, more importantly, is Cranley going to offer this plan up to a vote to the citizens? He was so eager for that before, will he do it now? I don't see that as part of his plan, and instead he wants to ram it through council. Hope the people on Council don't chicken out and rubber stamp this turkey.  I'm look at you Mr. Mann, don't be a chicken or a turkey, push back on Cranley.