If it is canceled it will be far worse than the subway in terms of $$$$.

^Um, that's a bold claim to make, especially if we are factoring ROI into the equation.  The subway would have gone as far north as Norwood, and would have certainly been expanded in the years following.  This city and region would be a totally different place had the subway been completed.

Yeah, I think that's a huge exaggeration. Streetcar would be a major missed opportunity, but the canceled subway permanently set the city back. There's no comparison between grade-separated heavy rail and a streetcar.

Completely scrapping our old streetcar system was a disaster, too.  If we had been able to keep a few lines running like Boston or Philadelphia it would have made a big difference. 

This has been posted in the streetcar thread but it deserves a mention here.

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20131126/EDIT01/311260115/EDITORIAL-Finish-streetcar?nclick_check=1

These guys are insane saying Mallory & Qualls re at fault for not getting the message out on the streetcar.

How many hit pieces did Horstman write? How many times did they go to Finney, Luken or Smitherman for "facts"?

These guys are as guano crazy as Cranley. It's like Alice in Wonderland on codeine....

They act like Mallory & Qualls are able to directly talk to the people. They aren't. The Enquirer and other media have persistently ignored Mallory & Qualls's positions, and the facts that support them, in favor of one-sided reporting and omission of facts.

 

You are 100% right, Quimbob. It is appalling that they would blame Mallory & Qualls for the Enquirer's own dereliction and utter lack of responsibility in informing the public.

This is starting to look like the inspiration for the Fishwarp editorial board...

more weirdness from the 'Warp

 

New mayor needs to invest in the city's future

 

Move ahead with the streetcar, parking lease, I71/MLK, solve poverty, fix thx the pension using the last council's plan, Wasson Way, Music Hall, Union Terminal...

 

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20131201/EDIT01/312010031/EDITORIAL-New-mayor-needs-invest-city-s-future?fb_action_ids=10151743731931854&fb_action_types=og.recommends&fb_ref=artsharebottom&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%5B268867206600970%5D&action_type_map=%5B%22og.recommends%22%5D&action_ref_map=%5B%22artsharebottom%22%5D

Just like the Enquirer, WCPO is moving to a paid subscription format for in-depth stories... I don't see this working out well for an organization that isn't known for in-depth coverage (though they have made significant progress in the past year or two).

 

http://www.wcpo.com/about-us/whats-the-icon-on-stories-mean

 

From the article:

 

Subscribers will enjoy:

• The exclusive ability to comment on WCPO.com

• Full, unlimited access to all news and information produced by WCPO

• Superior local business coverage by Dan Monk

• Investigations into local government and politics by Kevin Osborne

• Stories from some of Cincinnati’s best reporters that take a deeper look into topics of local importance such as Arts and Entertainment, Education, Life, and Crime and Justice

• Special offers

Ha. Good luck.

 

I like that comments will be subscriber-only. Should clean out many of the idiots.

I've stopped paying attention to WCPO ever since they started using Kevin Osborne for all their so called in-depth articles. I'm glad I won't even be tempted to click now.

It looks like they fixed the paywall.

It looks like they fixed the paywall.

 

If you use Firefox, get NoScript, it will allow you around the paywall still.

 

Alternatively, if you have AdBlock plus or something similar on any browser, go in and block this script:

 

"http://news.cincinnati.com/odygel/lib/firefly/firefly.js?odyv=1.21.2.3142"

Enquirer STILL struggling totally and completely with rudimentary web video!  Today's streetcar press conference video is smothered in static.

 

Just to let everyone know, I took some video and film classes in college.  I saw many lousy student videos and films.  NONE of them were besieged by the sort of bizarre technical problems that The Enquirer's videos seem to be afflicted by day after day after day, 10 years after web video was perfected. 

 

Here's how you make a web video:

1. turn on the camera

2. point it at the action

3. load file onto computer

4. upload to server

5. tell your friends

 

What is so hard about that?

 

 

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20131219/NEWS010801/312190096/What-s-happening-City-Hall-streetcar-decision-day?gcheck=1&nclick_check=1

well, you have to compress it which seems an impossible task (without distortion) for WKRC

The Enquirer really kicking ass today:

In other Enquirer news, Jeff Ruby's is switching to RC.

I will never eat at a Jeff Ruby establishment again.

Actually this IS important.

As long as they keep that crunchy ice like Whitey Castille's has.  If they do away with that?  I am writing a LTE.

As long as they keep that crunchy ice like Whitey Castille's has.  If they do away with that?  I am writing a LTE.

 

"Vanilla Pepsi is a communist idea"

Whoever selects the cover photo for the Enquirer website has a sense of humor. Mayor Cranley is on the front page tonight, looking like someone just threw a sack of potatoes at him.

 

Whoever selects the cover photo for the Enquirer website has a sense of humor. Mayor Cranley is on the front page tonight, looking like someone just threw a sack of potatoes at him.

 

 

To be fair, he frequently looks like this.

 

 

Can we start calling him "Johnny Eyebrows"?  Please?

Celebrity eyebrows - maybe nominate Cranky?

http://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/beauty/celebrity/2012/02/celebrity-eyebrows

The Enquirer keeps deleting my comments.  Some of them stay, but anytime I use a phrase like "scumbag" the whole comment is deleted.

via http://twitter.com/crowbarcranley

This is only related to the Enquirer on a tangent, but WCPO just headed in the same direction they did and started charging for some of their content. For only $80 a year you can read their in-depth content that has so far seemed to me like a bad rip-off of various local blogs.

 

Paying for the Enquirer at least makes sense because they deliver a physical paper to you as well. I’m curious how many takers WCPO will get – I imagine it won’t be very many, even if their first month is on sale for 1 cent.

 

An article about it

People have always accepted TV as free & the paper as a pay product. Apparently, WCPO will hide ads behind the paywall, too. That is, you pay to see the ads & advertisers get limited coverage.

My favorite line:

 

Local TV adopts bad idea from failing Newspapers.

 

http://meltaylormedia.com/local-tv-wcpo-readies-paywall-advertisers-pack-bags/

I wonder how much ad rates go down when paywalls go up.

An article about it

People have always accepted TV as free & the paper as a pay product. Apparently, WCPO will hide ads behind the paywall, too. That is, you pay to see the ads & advertisers get limited coverage.

My favorite line:

 

Local TV adopts bad idea from failing Newspapers.

 

http://meltaylormedia.com/local-tv-wcpo-readies-paywall-advertisers-pack-bags/

 

When they announced the paywall, almost all of the comments were from people saying, "so long, I'll just go to another local TV station's site now." I wonder if they have delayed the paywall because of that.

Yeah, with three other competitors (plus the Enquirer and various radio stations) producing essentially the same content, I can't see paying $80 a year so John Matarese can tell me how not to waste my money.

 

EDIT: Matarese is still free.  So there's that.  On the other hand, you have to be a subscriber to comment on news stories, so it's about to be a very civil place to get news.  Bonus.

Yeah, with three other competitors (plus the Enquirer and various radio stations) producing essentially the same content, I can't see paying $80 a year so John Matarese can tell me how not to waste my money.

 

EDIT: Matarese is still free.  So there's that.  On the other hand, you have to be a subscriber to comment on news stories, so it's about to be a very civil place to get news.  Bonus.

Or Carol Williams telling you, "breathing might not be as safe as you think"....

What I wrote on Reddit about it:

 

"They have been pulling writers and journalists away from the Enquirer and the Business Courier - such as Dan Monk. Dan used to write wonderful, positive articles at the Business Courier - about OTR developments, real estate and the sort, but he's become quite the cynic and debbie-downer (probably via his boss) at WCPO.

 

You want to charge for "in depth" coverage? Stop reproducing and rewriting articles found elsewhere. Stop hiring just 20 year old blondes to work as copywriters. Stop paying your copywriters minimum wage and/or stop interning them indefinitely - just hire them already."

I'm guessing the revenue from a subscription out weight the reduced views for advertisement. That's a big gamble. People hold grudges. Once you go down this road people remember.

I'm guessing the revenue from a subscription out weight the reduced views for advertisement. That's a big gamble. People hold grudges. Once you go down this road people remember.

 

I see that working for the Enquirer, but not WCPO.  Especially per the article above that says they have hired a full staff of 30 people to produce content for their website. They will need a lot of subscribers to pay for employees alone, let alone actually generate profit. I'd be surprised if they get more than a couple thousand subscribers, vs tens or even hundreds of thousands of hits a day they'll be giving up.

Plus, whenever you start to mix advertising and paywalls, you run into problems. Many advertisers want to reach more affluent visitors who have the money to buy their products. However, that's the same demographic most likely to cough up money to remove ads. So then, the advertising rates go down because the average income of the person seeing the ads goes down (in addition to the overall number going down).

 

If you've ever wondered why Google doesn't offer a paid, ad-free version of Google Search, YouTube, or Gmail, that's exactly why. Advertisers would pay more to reach that customer than the customer would pay to not see ads.

Well it depends on what you are selling. I don't like too upscale of an audience since once people get a certain amount of money they stop buying a lot of video games -- they participate in more structured activities. Or you know those new title loan places and for-profit trade schools don't want too upscale of an audience.

Every single article was negative today. From tolls on the BSB to the streetcar altering the route of the Reds parade. How does this joke survive?

I wonder how much ad rates go down when paywalls go up.

 

Enquirer paywall might the easiest to get around on planet earth.

Although beating the Enquirer paywall is kind of like sneaking into DPNK....

^DPRK?

North Korea?

Deer Park?  ;)

I often wonder if those kind of misspellings change the way people think. In his mind, thrones are associated with being thrown for example.

An ejection seat fit for a king.

 

When the castle is under siege, he can just parachute to safety!

Jerry Gels is a friend of mine, a father of two, a long time supporter of the central city, and runs a successful business of guided tours of the city's history.

 

Please remember these are real people that make honest mistakes.  Not everyone is the idiot you might paint them to be.

Jerry Gels is a friend of mine, a father of two, a long time supporter of the central city, and runs a successful business of guided tours of the city's history.

 

Please remember these are real people that make honest mistakes.  Not everyone is the idiot you might paint them to be.

 

It's not as though Jerry was publicly insulting a real person (Steve Norris) with the statement being made fun of...

 

Intelligent and/or good-natured people can be purveyors of malapropisms. I still think GCrites80s's hypothesis is interesting.

^ What I object to is taking a screenshot of someone's malapropism (which, let's face it, could be an auto-correct error he didn't catch) and pasting it into an unrelated forum for a cheap laugh - especially because he has since fixed it.  I'll grant that Jerry was going for a quick joke with the "Elf" quote, yeah, but that doesn't make it OK to treat him like an idiot for a misspelling.

 

If you want to quote and critique someone's online forum post/opinion/LTE to illustrate a larger point about the readership of a website, fine.  That's interesting and conversation-worthy.  But pointing to someone's honest mistake in a separate place where they likely don't know it's been reposted, and so can't defend themselves, is akin to a kid making a simple mistake in math class and then finding out everyone was making fun of him for it in the lunch room when he wasn't there.  It's a cheap shot and more than a bit juvenile.

 

Like I said before, try to remember these are real people, and imagine what it would feel like if your mental mistake was displayed for everyone else to laugh at.

I'm assuming he typed 'thron' & auto correct went with thrown instead of throne because more people talk about things being thrown than about thrones but given the grammatical context.....