EXCLUSIVE: Cincinnati Enquirer looking to sublease 75% of downtown office space

Jun 27, 2017, 2:32pm EDT

Tom Demeropolis

Senior Staff Reporter

Cincinnati Business Courier

 

 

Enquirer Media, publisher of the Cincinnati Enquirer newspaper, is looking to sublease about three quarters of its downtown office space.

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/06/27/exclusive-cincinnati-enquirer-looking-to-sublease.html

 

Well, they have already outsourced 3/4 of their news content so....

I can't believe they still had 109,000 square feet of leased space in that building. That place must feel like a ghost town.

 

Interestingly enough, at 109,000 square feet they have/had almost exactly 1 square foot of space per newspaper circulated daily.

More cuts at the Enquirer. Four more staffers are gone, including their last remaining arts writer. As John Kiesewetter puts it:

 

At the peak, the Enquirer had a Theater critic, Art critic, Movie critic, Food critic, Food editor, Classical Music critic, Pop Music Critic, Book Editor, Travel Editor and a general features writer/columnist in Jim Knippenberg – and our own copy desk and assistant editors.  Among my coworkers were Owen Findsen, Cliff Radel, Margaret McGurk, Sara Pearce, Tom McElfresh, Chuck Martin, Lauren Bishop, Larry Nager, Ray Cooklis, Tom Brinkmoeller, Steve Hoffman, Martin Hogan Jr., Rosemary Munsen, Jim DeBrosse, Mike McLeod, and Joe DeChick.

 

And then there were none.

I know it's different in nature, I use the Biz Courier a lot for work purposes, but they do cover a large % of the same headlines.

 

The Enquirer could learn a thing or two from the Cincinnati Business Courier. There's a reason they can get away with charging $115/year for just the digital subscription and it seems like the you couldn't give away an Enquirer subscription. Years and years of tabloid-style articles, anti-Cincy content ... bashing anything positive we've accomplished has caught up with them in so many ways.

It's so normal now that I don't even think about it, but it's actually pretty weird that the local business-focused newspaper is the best source of information for news on transportation issues and local politics.

 

The Enquirer's local politics coverage is obviously slanted in a very particular direction, and the Business Courier is the only local outlet willing to call out hypocrisy and double-speak from the current city administration. The Business Courier's transportation coverage is written by a reporter who has lived in cities/states with good transit and who has the vocabulary to talk about those issues. The Enquirer's transportation stories seem to be written by people who have never lived anywhere but Clermont County and have no first hand experience with transit in any other city. Every time the Enquirer gets a new editor they claim that "we're going to do a better job with our coverage of city issues" but then they never do; and then the new editor leaves after a year anyway.

 

I happily support the Business Courier as well as WCPO, which also does a decent job on these issues, but sometimes publishes wacky sensationalist headlines just like the Enquirer does.

It was amazing last month to hear Jason Williams on WVXU...he mentioned that he drove up and around Children's Hospital to familiarize himself with the area.  How have you lived here for years and never bothered to take a drive around that area?

 

Also, on the day the streetcar started running, I heard one of the Enquirer's reporters say something so idiotic it was simply unbelievable.  Since the decline began, they have quite obviously intentionally hired idiots. 

^ It reminds me of the day that the UrbanCincy crew got to go on one of the "media preview rides" for the streetcar. We were on the second train, so we were on there with the other non-VIP media outlets, including local radio stations. Two young guys from some country radio station were on there, they were obviously playing up the "country boys in the big city" schtick and it was actually pretty funny. But I did hear some local reporters say really obvious things like, "oh, it stops at red lights?", and, "I guess you press this 'stop' button when you want to get off?" It's simply not possible to do a good job of covering transit if you have no experience riding transit and don't truly understand how it works in other places.

It's so normal now that I don't even think about it, but it's actually pretty weird that the local business-focused newspaper is the best source of information for news on transportation issues and local politics.

 

The Enquirer's local politics coverage is obviously slanted in a very particular direction, and the Business Courier is the only local outlet willing to call out hypocrisy and double-speak from the current city administration. The Business Courier's transportation coverage is written by a reporter who has lived in cities/states with good transit and who has the vocabulary to talk about those issues.

 

 

That's basically how those papers work, at least around here. Columbus Business First is the same way. Basically the people who work there know that being a closed-minded anti-everything-but-Wal-Mart's gets in the way of making money. It would be a disservice to their readers and a lot of educated people wouldn't read it or subscribe. Those papers have to be aimed at real readers, not people who like to get cranky over their oatmeal in the morning.

I know it's different in nature, I use the Biz Courier a lot for work purposes, but they do cover a large % of the same headlines.

 

The Enquirer could learn a thing or two from the Cincinnati Business Courier. There's a reason they can get away with charging $115/year for just the digital subscription and it seems like the you couldn't give away an Enquirer subscription. Years and years of tabloid-style articles, anti-Cincy content ... bashing anything positive we've accomplished has caught up with them in so many ways.

 

Yeah, you read the Business Courier which I subscribe to, then you look at the Enquirer and it's just like, "Are they serious?". 

 

The only decent thing about the Enquirer might be the sports but even that coverage can get annoying.  I would almost rather read ESPN on sports coverage sometimes (talking mostly about the Bengals), but I understand that is more slanted locally where I am not from here so I think I look at it differently.  Their Reds coverage is solid though.

 

And what's funny is that coincides with WLW.  The guy in the  morning Mike McConnell is good delivering the news, but everything else is garbage except for Marty on Reds games and then the guys for Bengals games.

I wonder if the paper and WLW would go out of business if it wasn't for the Reds.

Someday Ohio.com is not going to be covering NE Ohio, but it will be the paper for all of Ohio

It's the same in Cleveland - Crain's Cleveland Business is really a pleasure to read compared to the PD, much more in depth and thought-out articles.

Jason Williams sez Cranley supporters are "real people". 

 

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics-extra/2017/11/08/px-three-secrets-john-cranleys-stunning-comeback/842897001/

 

3. Real people had their say.

Cincinnati doesn't live in the Over-the-Rhine bubble. This election proved the so-called progressives remain in the political minority in this town, despite all the hubbub about the streetcar and noise they make in the Facebook echo chamber.

 

That vocal minority would have you believe that Simpson was loved and Cranley loathed across the city. Turns out, Simpson's support is probably an inch wide and a mile deep. Meanwhile, Cranley's is a mile wide and an inch deep.

 

Overall, Cranley has done more for the everyday citizen. Politics Extra believes this is where his focus on basic government services, keeping the streets safe and giving city union workers raises paid off. More people care about having their streets paved and garbage picked up on time than whether the city has a spiffy Downtown streetcar.

 

A faction of those everyday citizens – union workers – helped Cranley connect with the broader electorate. In the two weeks leading up to Election Day, the unions quietly led a get-out-the-vote effort for Cranley. Each day, about 50 volunteers hit the streets to knock on doors.

 

There are a lot of people with sore knuckles today, but it was a small price to pay for keeping Cranley another four years.

Leave it to Williams to bring up the streetcar multiple times in an article that was not, at all, about the streetcar.

It's pretty obvious when listening to his appearances on WVXU that Williams truly does not understand politics.  It's like listening to a freshman in Poly Sci 102 getting called on by the professor. 

Lol love this, especially the inch and mile bullshit. It's the same cross sectional area either way.

It's pretty obvious when listening to his appearances on WVXU that Williams truly does not understand politics.  It's like listening to a freshman in Poly Sci 102 getting called on by the professor. 

 

Why does that article tick me off so much!  Seriously, if Yvette hadn't done the Children's thing, I am certain she would have won. 

When does Jason Williams officially become the mayor's spokesman?

When does Jason Williams officially become the mayor's spokesman?

 

And another puff piece from The Enquirer:

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/columnists/2017/11/08/competent-cranley-has-chance-become-great-mayor/837747001/

Cincinnati has received so much positive attention at a national level because of the fact that we've revitalized our urban core: reduced crime, increased development, dramatically improved our public spaces, etc. It seems like there has been a constant stream of praise for 5+ years now.

 

And yet the Cranley and Williams types continue to insist that outer neighborhoods are the "Real Cincinnati" and downtown is just a place where pesky millennial hipsters hang out. And we need to stop investing in downtown.

 

It's just... unbelievable.

So if you live in the heart of Cincinnati, maybe in one of those Italianate buildings that Cincinnati is so well known for, you’re not a “real Cincinnatian.” Tortured logic on display

The urban core is what gets outsiders to fall in love with a place. Obviously you need to have great neighborhoods too, but I'd be willing to bet that no one moved to, say Indianapolis because they heard Lockerbie Square was a great collection of historic houses; they found out about Lockerbie or Fountain Square after spending time downtown. And it's not like focusing investments in OTR has suddenly made Hyde Park or Oakley less desirable or more potholes magically appear in front of peoples' homes.

 

I think a lot of it has to do with the resistance to change and to newcomers. These people aren't "real Cincinnatians" because they didn't spend their whole life in Price Hill. Downtown is effectively shiny and new to lifers and "those people" don't matter as much because they don't have the same traditions and don't move where you're supposed to move (aka as far out from the CBD as possible).

So if you live in the heart of Cincinnati, maybe in one of those Italianate buildings that Cincinnati is so well known for, you’re not a “real Cincinnatian.” Tortured logic on display

 

They don't even pay attention to high school football

I have very low expectations from the Enquirer, of course, but I just found this article:

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2017/12/11/lacheys-bar-manager-shooting-search-justice-and-fair-trial/939240001/

sort of amazing. Am I just losing my bearings or is this an unusually terrible example of journalism?

 

The "journalist" Byron McCauley refers to the woman who got shot coming out of Lachey's bar as an anonymous "pretty blonde," uses sensationalism like "pow!" to refer to a gunshot, and touts over the rhine as "Cincinnati's most important party neighborhood." He asserts that the coming trial will receive a lot of attention because "... sadly, the simmering undercurrent of race." Oh and not just because an innocent person was shot in the face to end an argument?

 

I don't know what the point of the article even is, and I'm pretty sure McCauley doesn't either. I was just going to write this off as another example of poor journalism by an Enquirer intern, but McCauley is listed as being on the Editorial Board!

 

I just find this to be embarrassing. Why must Cincinnati be subjected to the lowest journalistic standards. I don't think it's hard to find people who write better or at least more objectively and intelligently. The Enquirer must be training their writers in this sort of style?

 

Frustrating.

^Ugh.

 

The main problem with an article like that is that it is presented as "news". If it were clearly presented as an opinion column, then it'd be less problematic.

It's like something penned by Peter Bronson.  I thought he was a put-on until I by total chance saw him in public back around 2003 at an art exhibition.  He was completely bored and made a bunch of dumb comments to the people he was with. 

 

For pretty much my entire adult life I've always felt like Enquirer writers were writing about some imagined place, not the actual physical city as it objectively exists. 

It's utterly ridiculous that The Enquirer has sent not one but TWO reporters to Nashville to report from their MLS announcement.

 

Remember 18 years ago when Carl Lindner hit The Enquirer for $10 million in cash and the paper had to agree to never do any investigative reporting on his companies ever again?  His sons still have the paper totally under their thumb. 

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/crime/crime-and-courts/2018/03/08/clifton-heights-parking-fight-leads-gunfire/408432002/

 

This article fails to report the date of the incident...did it just happen today?  Last month?  And no specific location, either. 

 

Ten years ago heads would have rolled if something this scant appeared in print. 

The Enquirer has won a Pulitizer for Local Reporting for the Seven Days of Heroin series.

 

@Enquirer

 

The Enquirer is proud to have been named a #Pulitzer winner for 'Seven Days of Heroin' http://cin.ci/2y0hUcc

I don't ever read this thread since I have no connection to what happens in Cincinnati, and it appears everyone hates this paper, but they did win a Pulitzer Prize for local reporting. Just sayin'--

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/business/media/pulitzer-prize-winners.html

 

"Staff of The Cincinnati Enquirer

 

The Enquirer was recognized for its multimedia narrative of seven days inside the city’s heroin epidemic, a period in which 18 people died and at least 180 overdoses were  reported across the area. “What we wanted to do was to let our communities here  know what people are living every single day,” said Terry DeMio, one of the project’s lead reporters.

 

More than 60 reporters contributed. “This was the most local news story you can imagine,”  said Dan Horn, co-author of the main article with Ms. DeMio.  “Everyone was involved in some way, shape or form.” 

Every year they come out with one solid piece of reporting. One year it was about a refugee family resettled in Cincinnati from Syria. Another year it was about a family of undocumented immigrants. This year it was the heroin epidemic. Majority of the paper is click-bait or poorly researched, but occasionally they hit it out of the park, and it's only when they obviously want to and put a lot of resources/personnel towards it.

 

Congrats to all of the contributors to the story, though. It was very good.

What's weird about that is, yes, that was great reporting. But they almost never do anything else that deep. Why not?

 

Edit: I had loaded the page before ryanlammi[/member] posted. That's exactly what I'm talking about, it's like a once-a-year thing.

Just updated the title of this thread to be neutral towards the Enquirer (even though I suspect most of the posts here will be negative).

The Tennessean endorses Nashville's giant May 1 transit tax.  Inconceivable that The Enquirer could do this. 

 

https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/2018/04/20/nashville-transit-plan-bold-step-forward/532622002/

Just updated the title of this thread to be neutral towards the Enquirer (even though I suspect most of the posts here will be negative).

 

There is already an existing thread with this name:

https://www.urbanohio.com/forum/index.php/topic,3762.msg907594.html#msg907594

^ Thanks... merged.

Not sure if has been mentioned yet but I am noticing on the Enq app now that all stories are now locked out for subscription.

Paul Daugherty tossed this bit into his latest column: "Obama, universally hated around here..."

 

Yep, he was so hated around here that he won Hamilton County in both 2008 and 2012, and was the first Dem the county to win since 1964.

 

Just more evidence of how disconnected the Enquirer is with the city it claims to serve.

Also, the Enquirer's big sexual assault feature story was just one of those things designed to compete for journalism awards. 

 

The points seemed to be:

-sexual assault at colleges are underreported

-some male students are falsely accused and even expelled by women who fabricate stories

 

Yeah everyone already knew that.  You just video taped 12 people giving their personal stories and...that's it. 

 

Paul Daugherty tossed this bit into his latest column: "Obama, universally hated around here..."

 

Yep, he was so hated around here that he won Hamilton County in both 2008 and 2012, and was the first Dem the county to win since 1964.

 

Just more evidence of how disconnected the Enquirer is with the city it claims to serve.

 

Eh, when he says that I think he means among the folks who write him emails. Daugherty is pretty vocal in sharing his left-leaning opinions and talks in his column about how he gets lots of negative feedback in his inbox from Trumpers. He also lives in Clermont County, so there's that.

^ The Cincinnati metropolitan statistical area, roughly the area served/represented by the Enquirer, trends about 60-40% Republican over the last few presidential elections. I wouldn't be surprised if the segment of the population that routinely reads the sports page is farther right than that, but I don't have the data to back it up.

Right, I think when he says "around here" he is subconsciously affected by the sports bubble which I gotta assume is more right leaning than the overall population.

Right, I think when he says "around here" he is subconsciously affected by the sports bubble which I gotta assume is more right leaning than the overall population.

 

Overall sports fans lean conservative but if you dive deeper it shows there's a real disparity between sports. The NBA and MLS have more liberal fans while PGA Tour and College Football fans are more conservative. The graph below from the Business Insider from 2013: https://www.businessinsider.com/politics-sports-you-like-2013-3

 

Golf up in the corner makes a lot of sense, since old wealthier white guys make up probably the most consistent voting bloc in the country.

Jason William's latest PX column is titled "Cincinnati streetcar needs to be shutdown. For now, anyway"

 

I'm not linking to it because it's trash.

The enquirer writing an entire article about there being mold in two of the streetcars is laughable.  Do you not think there's mold in the metro buses if you looked for it?  It's ridiculous how biased the enquirer is against the streetcar and its the number 1 reason why the region as a whole is against it. 

"There's mold on the streetcar" is the kind of thing that is a total non-issue in reality but will will be a topic of conversation for weeks (or years) on local talk radio. I'm sure if you tested the average car driving down I-75 right now you would find more mold that what was found on one of the streetcars during a routine inspection and corrected before it had the chance to affect anyone.

 

Funny how the Enquirer posted a Kumbaya "it's time for the streetcar skeptics to 'get on board' so we can all work together to make it a success!" editorial a few years ago, but then they continue to publish Williams' anti-streetcar drivel every time it hits a minor bump.

The Enquirer is displaying Williams' anti-streetcar column in line with actual news stories, making no effort whatsoever to label it as opinion.

Honestly - I'm a bit surprised how far to the left side of the political spectrum WWE skews. I'm not sure, yet, what to make of it.

Must be their Northeastern fans.