Thursday, July 07, 2011

Cincy | Moms take down lawmaker -- and Enquirer

[Say, cheese: Viagra-fueled Ohio politician stands 5'9'']

Beat to the punch by a local TV station, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported last Wednesday that a well-known morals-and-order state lawmaker had been arrested for drunk driving. The conservative Republican Rep. Robert Mecklenborg, a 59-year-old married father of three, also had a young woman passenger in his car, the paper said, citing law-enforcement documents.

But the paper failed to note Mecklenborg also had Viagra in his system -- an omission some observers questioned, since that detail was in the documents. What's more, the Enquirer also didn't explain why the arrest, nearly 10 weeks before, had escaped the paper's attention for so long. (Cincinnati's WLWT-TV says it was first to report the news.) And the Enquirer didn't post the documents, which include the lab test results. You can read all nine pages on this website.

Well, leave it to the posters on Cincinnati's MomsLikeMe site to fill in a few more unvarnished details -- and to rap the Enquirer for its tardy reporting. Poster westsideangle launched the online discussion with this piquant post:

"Since so many on this board had a strong opinion on what should happen to New York's former Representative Weiner when he posted pictures of himself on the internet, I thought we'd talk about a local guy. Bob Mecklenborg. He was arrested nine weeks ago (although the arrest just became known to the Enquirer -- good investigative journalism there) for OVI and inside the car with him was a known stripper from a local strip club in Lawrenceburg. Mecklenborg is married and has several children, all of whom attended Catholic schools as far as I know. Well, I know at least one of his daughters did in any event. So, what should be done? Should he resign? Should the people in charge of the local Republican party kick him out of office?  I believe he also sat on the Ethics Committee in Columbus. How ironic! So, what think you?"

Note to the editors: Enquiring minds want to read way more about the case.

Related: an Arkansas congressman, and a stripper named Fanne Fox.

62 comments:

  1. nice work on this post, Jim. The Enquirer looks like a sad remnant of a once-mediocre newspaper.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is a news organization as envisioned by community public relations boosters Margaret Buchanan and Carolyn Washburn. Skip the juicy details that people want to read -- a Viagra-loaded politician with a hot stripper in the car, c'mon! Nah, just report the basics and move on. No need for a followup. No need to send a reporter to the stripper's home or to Concepts Lounge Showgirls, where interviews are waiting to happen. Nah, we need more stories about church festivals and gas prices. No wonder our readers are dropping like flies.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The more relevant, widely known data like this is left out, the more the Enquirer encourages its paid subscribers to stop especially since most, if not all, other local media sites offered more. And, that includes stories about Gannett firing 700 people and how many it sent packing locally…something the Enquirer has yet to report.

    Buchanan’s never been one to pay attention to small details of any kind and yet its details like those that further exacerbate the Enquirer’s problems.

    ReplyDelete
  4. No room for stories like this at the Enquirer. Where then would all the Deal Chicken ads go? Where would more PR's stories on Jeff Ruby go?

    ReplyDelete
  5. There's a very complicated background to this story about how the Enquirer didn't print any information about the first arrest, which was particularly juicy involving the stripper and the head of the Ethics Committee in the state legislature. Given all the angles, why this didn't appear in the paper has locals buzzing and suggesting that the powerful Catholic church has an inside line to the powers that be at the Enquirer to suppress the first arrest.
    As I said this has a very complicated background going back to charges that the late Cardinal Berrnadin, a notorious right-winger and supporter of Opus Dei, raped a girl in a ritual satanic style. The church fought like hell to suppress this incredible story, which some thought might have a kernel of truth because Bernardin was really crazy and erratic alcoholic. Church leaders feared the story would create a backlash that would hurt their efforts to gather support in the Queen City's Lutheran-based German community. This was also at a time when the Catholic church was trying to bring the entire Lutheran church back into the Catholic fold.
    Back to Mecklenborg, the inside story is that the church was trying to save his marriage, but with little success because Mecklenbourg kept straying and then showing up in the confession box to tell all.
    So when he was busted the first time, Mecklenbourg appealled to the church, which bled all over Buchanan at the Enquirer to withhold the story. And so the arrest story was suppressed.
    I only know about this because I've been watching the church in the tortures of hell as it continues to struggle with the Bernardin satanic rape issue, even though he died four decades ago of liver cancer. Bernardin was a huge and very successful money raiser for his church and responsible for funneling contributions from very wealthy Cincy residents to some extravagant church projects like the John Paul Center at Catholic Universiy in Washington, D.C., which was a huge Bernardin project.
    That's probably more than you wanted to know, but there is certainly a lot more about Bernardin and Opus Dei involved here if you look around.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The Enquirer performance on this story was a disagrace. Where's the explanation from Carolyn Washburn why the Viagra news was nixed? Just give the readers the facts of the case and let them make up their own minds. Shame. Shame. Shame.

    ReplyDelete
  7. "Just give readers the facts of the case?" And maybe in a more timely fashion? Ten weeks after the fact? Something smells real bad here, Enquirer.

    ReplyDelete
  8. This is a truly wonderful story. A Republican right-winger and paragon of virtue and family values nabbed drunk driving with a stripper. Come on, God made newspapers for this sort of story.
    The strip club involved is the Concepts Lounge Showgirls, which gives you an indication its not just your ordinary neighorhood bar. If you look on Yelp, you see it is near the casino on U.S. 50 and said to be the place to go if you "need a quick bit of action before or after" an evening of gambling.
    The stripper indicated Mecklenbourg was a repeat customer. "We’ve been friends for a while," the cop's police report quotes her as saying. So how many times do the cops give you that sort of color in a police report? Come on, Enquirer, everyone in Cincinnati knows this is a story, and it speaks volumes of your efforts to kiss up to the business community that it didn't appear in the paper. Look at the local blogs, which ran with this after the paper refused, and are still running with it. This fool is the laughing stock of the town.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Duh, du'ya think the cops knew she wasn't just a stripper? Just saying.

    ReplyDelete
  10. @12:21, when you say, this fool is the laughingstock of the town, do you mean Meklenborg or the Enquirer?

    ReplyDelete
  11. To 11:34--

    Wow. The anti Archdiocesan paranoia is breath-taking. Believe me, as a 20+ year former employee of the Cincinnati Archdiocese, I can assure you that I have many bad things to say about the way business is done in the downtown office...but your suggestion that the powers that be worked in concert with the EQ to suppress the story b/c the church was "trying to save the Mecklenborg marriage" is ludicrous. I would be willing to bet no one downtown even knows Mr or Mrs Mecklenborg personally...and certainly IF Bob even goes to confession, the priest would not call downtown to report the juciy details or repeat dalliances.

    You may need medication.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Interesting that the Enquirer disabled the story chat function on the two stories on this case on its website. Maybe don't want readers wondering why in the hell this took TEN weeks to print?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Don't know if it factors in to how the story was treated, but this law firm gets a chunk of change from Gannett. This firm represents The Courier-Journal in Louisville. Not sure if they are retained by any other papers.

    ReplyDelete
  14. The out-of-town media are having field day with the Mecklenborg story while the Enquirer sleeps away. Connie Schultz's column for the Plain Dealer had almost 200 comments as of mid-morning, and the New York Daily had a staff writer do a piece that had 60 comments. Unbelievably, the Enquirer wouldn't take comments from readers of its own Viagra-free story.

    And why hasn't the Enquirer done a follow-up on the story? Here, on its own MomsLikeMe discussion board, is a tip that only an Enquirer reporter (with access to name-registration data) can pursue. They should be all over this gal:

    by Daynamariee1981

    on Jul 02, 2011 at 11:07 PM

    I was employed at Concepts for five years while I was in college. Bob came into the club at least three times a week. He is extremely perverted and would offer almost every girl money for sex. I had no idea he was a State rep. I had no idea that he was married because his text messages were so dirty. I really think it should be up to the voters. He is great at his job, he is just a lousy husband.

    ReplyDelete
  15. 1:20 I'm not anti-Archiocesan, whatever that might mean, and I'm certainly not anti-Catholic. I'm just reporting what the rumor mill is saying, and that's true. What fascinates me is that everytime I think the stuff about Bernardin is dead, it crops up again. Mind you he died in 1966. Frankly, I would be happy if it would just go away, because I'm bored with people telling me the same Bernardin story over and over again. And here I am telling it again on an anonymous blog, which only perpetuates it

    ReplyDelete
  16. 12:29: Both

    ReplyDelete
  17. Sparky once worked at the Enquirer. He says there have always been rumors the paper was in bed with the church.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Why disable comments on the Enquirer stories -- assuming that's the case -- but allow such an unbridled discussion on the paper's moms site?

    ReplyDelete
  19. 3:14 What was doubly annoying was that when the Cincy Post was going, both papers were in bed with the Catholic church. Scripps, which owned the Post, was once headed by Bill Burleigh, a big conservative Catholic in town. Scripps is based in Cincy. I don't see what the church gets out of this arrangement, other than incidents like this one which indicate church influence over the newspaper is very much alive, well and thriving. We do have other religions in Cincy, and there are active members of these denominations who get publicity when they get in trouble. So why not Mecklenborg.
    Also there was some speculation on this board that Buchanan would stop meddling in editorial when she dumped Calinan and brought in Washburn. Doesn't seem to have worked out that way now, does it? Let's see, who do you think is the real problem for this newspaper?

    ReplyDelete
  20. Sorry 2:53, but Bill Burleigh of Scripps was also a huge Bernardin supporter, and gave away a lot of his money through him.

    ReplyDelete
  21. God moves in mysterious ways.

    ReplyDelete
  22. From the ohiodailyblog.com, where the writer questions why no state newspapers picked up on this story.

    http://ohiodailyblog.com/content/mecklenborg-case-raises-questions-journalists-and-batchelder

    What I'd like to know is how in the world no reporter had their nose to the grindstone or no contacts who would leak this juicy story? Or did any Enquirer reporter know of the story and it got quashed? Either version speaks volumes.

    ReplyDelete
  23. The anti-Catholic bigots and crazy conspiracy theorists are out in droves. This rumor mongering is disgusting.

    ReplyDelete
  24. 5:19 No it's all true. Here's the police dash cam:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6beRRv2CAvo

    ReplyDelete
  25. He was driving on an expired Ohio license and stopped by the police in a car with temporary Kentucky tags that had a broken headlight. Hmmm. Stolen car? Just moved out of his house?

    ReplyDelete
  26. Bernardin's ghost broke his light.

    ReplyDelete
  27. 5:19 He's toast. Even conservatives now want him out. I thought the cop was very professional, and very much in control. Wonder what the perversion was?

    ReplyDelete
  28. Jim, no one cares about Spanky's theories.

    ReplyDelete
  29. As someone who grew up Catholic in Ohio, may I just say: buh?

    You guys think -- seriously think -- that the archdiocese is calling the shots at a newspaper? A *Gannett* newspaper? Since when is Gannett motivated by anything but profit and the groupthink-stupid that comes out of their endless meetings?

    Yeah, the Catholics control the comment pages! And the Freemasons are encoding secret messages in the classified ads! And if you fold a Sunday edition just right, you get a map that will lead you directly to the Templar treasure buried under Paul Brown Stadium! (Beware the albino eunuchs who dwell in the basement of the Enquirer building, though. If they catch you digging up the end zone, they will eat your face.)

    How's the weather down there in 1928, guys? I'm pretty sure that's the last time this country whipped up a decent anti-Papist mob.

    Cut it out. I'm a freaking lapsed Catholic AND a laid-off Gannett reporter who's angrier at this company than I have ever been angry at any faceless entity in my life -- and you're grossing *me* out.

    ReplyDelete
  30. I think they covered former publisher Harry Whipple's DUI better than this one.

    ReplyDelete
  31. I can't think of any valid reason to leave out the Viagra or not to pursue very logical follow ups on whether he is in trouble politically. An explanation would seem to be in order.

    ReplyDelete
  32. I hear a lot of noise crying anti-Catholic bias, but I don't see any reason for this. Either address the factual situation, or go back under the bridge. The evidence is well-known in this case in the Enquirer operating center. Call and ask.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Yes, I do believe the church is controlling the newspaper. The proof is this Mechlenborg story.

    ReplyDelete
  34. 9:24 p.m. you could substitute "the Catholic Church" for "Gannett" in this sentence of yours, and it would mean the same thing.

    Since when is Gannett motivated by anything but profit and the groupthink-stupid. ...

    ReplyDelete
  35. 11:34 AM, what a bunch of Dan Brown, Opus Dei, satanic rape, fact-free hooey. Bernardin didn't die "four decades ago," but in 1996 in Chicago. He had been Cardinal there since 1982 after leaving Cincinnati. The Enquirer DID miss the Mecklenborg story big time, but your anti-Catholic fantasies trying to explain why just show what you really are.

    ReplyDelete
  36. 11:34 and you other KKK members need to crawl back into your holes.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Jim: You are tolerating anti-Papist bigotry and you are deserting your journalistic principles. If 11:34 wrote that utterly baseless speculation about anyone except a official of the Roman Catholic Church, would you let it stand? Shame on you.

    ReplyDelete
  38. He's never had principles. So there's nothing for him to desert.

    ReplyDelete
  39. 10:45 and 1:01 Fine with me. If you don't like the information then you can ignore it. But why should it be denied others? They can make up their minds whether this is some Dan Brown fiction or whatever. What proof is there that the angel Maroni visited Joseph Smith in 1823, or that Mohammed took a night ride on a white stallion named Barrack? What proof is there are really St. Peter's bones under that cathedral in Rome? I could go on, but essentially you can believe whatever you want to believe based on your judgement of the set of facts you are presented. Say it is nonsense and an anti-Catholic that is ok. And in this case, you paid nothing for them, so you can make your own judgement of their validity. Just don't tell me what I should believe because I want to hear the facts first. I pay money to read the facts the Enquirer presents, and I expect that money would be spent to make them as accurate and complete as possible. In this Mecklinbourg case, they clearly were not.

    ReplyDelete
  40. If the Enquirer wants to improve the accuracy of the newspaper and it's financial stability, it needs to pour more money into the process of gathering and printing news, and stop the publisher from imposing her views over the news accounts that are gathered and edited by professionals who are trained and paid to do the best job they can.

    ReplyDelete
  41. 11:34 repeats wild allegations about former Cincinnati Archbishop Joseph Bernardin, as well as the Enquirer, that are instructive for several reasons.

    They reflect the widespread belief among some residents that the editorially conservative Enquirer has been -- and remains today -- a lapdog of the city's power structure, including the Catholic church.

    Look no further than Cincy magazine, which describes itself as "the magazine for business professionals." A year ago, it published a story about the powerful Cincinnati Business Council, whose members have included former Cincinnati Enquirer publisher Bill Keating. Here's the first paragraph:

    "If The Da Vinci Code had been set in Cincinnati, author Dan Brown's sinister secret society, Opus Dei, would be the CBC. The Cincinnati Business Committee has probably launched more conspiracy theories and imaginary plots than Brown's Byzantine novels about the Catholic Church."

    The paper's gentle coverage of the Mecklenborg arrest feeds these suspicions, at least partly because he is Catholic. I can't think of any reason why the paper hasn't covered the story more aggressively. It's shameful.

    11:34's comment, and some follow-ups, are no doubt deeply offensive to many Gannett Blog readers. But isn't it better to know that sentiment exists in Cincinnati, rather than pretending it doesn't?

    ReplyDelete
  42. Jim, you often hint at "news" that you withhold, because you can't confirm it. For instance, you admitted that you had information about layoffs in Cincinnati before the fact, and didn't bother to let the "inquiring minds" here know.

    So can someone point me toward the confirmation that this woman is a stripper? I am not saying she isn't; she probably is. But I would invite you to read WLWT's amazing sentence that says it is "working to confirm" reports... If you can't confirm it, do you run it? And are you sure about his intent with the viagra? Can you say for certain he's not headed home to the wife? I agree, it's a sexy story and makes for great tabloid fodder. But aren't there standards about being able to confirm facts and be sure of intent before printing information?

    Aren't those the standards you used when you failed to report the layoff news when you received it?

    ReplyDelete
  43. The tip I received about pending layoffs at the Enquirer turned out to be correct. But the number I was given was higher than the actual number laid off. I'll leave it to others to decide whether I made the right call.

    It's a fact that he had Viagra in his system. The Enquirer should have included that detail. It did not have to take it any further. And I've said nothing about his intent.

    I've seen no confirmation that the woman in question worked as a stripper. It is interesting that she has not publicly disputed that speculation.

    But absent confirming that as true, the Enquirer was correct in not including anything suggesting she is a stripper.

    That said, the paper's willingness to let its moms site speculate on the subject is interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  44. 8:30 We have just gone through what I think are two major press embarrassments -- Caylee and Dominique Strauss Kahn. Have we learned nothing about the rush to judgement in the press from this? So when you ask for confirmation the women is a stripper, I think you will find that someone is laying out a stream of facts and letting you reach a conclusion. Such is journalism. Sometimes you do not know the full story, and you just lay out the facts you know and assume the reader will make the connection. That some take this basic journalism and run with it and make the connections is not the fault of the reporters. The tabloid press has its purpose. It is designed to cater to those who like that, or want to read the funny and ironic connections. It may not be how I do it, but I understand it, and I see the dangers of this approach as we today witness with the folding of the News of the World in England, which is the leading Sunday circulation paper in that country. It is notorious for outing priests who have wandered from their pastoral paths.
    This is a debate that goes beyond the Enquirer and this story, and I frankly think it is an effort to deflect us from the real story here: There are clearly questions about how the Enquirer coveed this Mecklingbourg story, why the first arrest was not reported, and why the story on the second arrest had holes in it. The Enquirer needs to answer these questions because its future viability depends on it.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Second arrest? Or second story about the arrest?

    ReplyDelete
  46. 9:19 Sorry I'm multitasking. I'll double check and get back to you.

    ReplyDelete
  47. Use of Viagra is legal if prescribed by a physician. It is not known to cause driving impairment if used as intended. I would think its public mention is more appropriate in any resultant civil or domestic proceedings.

    ReplyDelete
  48. A Gannett publication avoiding rocking the boat with the powers that be in its community? Impossible!

    ReplyDelete
  49. 9:19: 9:09 here. You are correct. I only know that this is the first arrest, bassed on what he said on that dash cam video.
    About 60 percent through the video, the cop laid out the penalties of 1 year license suspension for the first offense, and 2 years for a second offense. Mecklenbourg responded "Two years?" But then went on to say he had not had a previous conviction. I made an assumption and only know of this one.

    ReplyDelete
  50. The church and conspiracy theories aside, the mere suspicion that a state legislator was with a stripper when he was driving drunk with a 4-hour erection is reason enough for an editor worth her salt to assign a reporter or two to investigate it. I checked the paper today and there is STILL no follow-up coverage of politician's apparent taste for the dark side or how the incident is playing out in his district. One thing is obvious, and that's that the Enquirer's top editors aren't Tiger Editors.

    ReplyDelete
  51. 6:12 AM – Millions have been poured into news and the financials prove it. Look deeper and you’ll discover many highly compensated employees (many to well paid), people who should have been challenged with more work, wage increases well exceeding salary pool targets and market demand, and similar reporting errors and omissions like those being discussed now.

    Frankly, the Enquirer’s news operations should have been more in-touch and efficient with what it spent years ago - including greater reliance on its less costly weekly staff for commodity type coverage, but with revenues flowing no one seemed to care. When they came crashing down people finally did. Unfortunately, many bad moves continue to result.

    Regarding publishers’ news influence (many give Buchanan way too much), if they don’t keep an eye on editorial, then who will? And, that’s not a defense of Buchanan as I would have fired her long ago, still would.

    ReplyDelete
  52. Apparently, Cincinnati news is not so important to Columbus, OH. This story did not make it to the local Columbus news stations until Friday evening, two days after it broke on WLWT in Cincinnati.
    It's too bad the Enquirer wasn't the first to jump on the story, but it doesn't mean much to the rest of Ohio.

    ReplyDelete
  53. 10:31 If you look at the Caylee case, you see you can go to jail for lying to the cops. So if there were indeed previous DUI convictions, perhaps we will hear more about Mecklengbourg as the prosecution phase begins. This case is worth following.

    ReplyDelete
  54. At the very least, the Enquirer should perform the public service of investigating the other stripper's assertion that Mecklenborg was a regular at Concepts Lounge Showgirls and sent pervy text messages to the dancers. Those text messages make for great reading. Gannett's very own Detroit Free Press won a Pulitzer for its coverage of the sex-crazed textoholic ex-mayor. If Carolyn Washburn was only one-eighth the editor that Paul Anger is, she would be pushing her folks on the Mecklenborg story.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Hear, hear for the Moms Like Me site for doing the work that the Enquirer couldn't or wouldn't.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Why the questioning about the Viagra?
    It is in the complaint. They did a blood test and came up with results that confirmed he exceeded Indiana's threshold for alcohol, and that there was detected the chemical desmethysildenafil and sildenafil. Source: complaint. Both Sildenafil and desmethysildenfil are marketed under the trade name of name of Viagra and Revatio. Revatio is used to treat high blood pressure. Now read the directions for taking Viagra:
    "Viagra is usually taken only when needed, 30 minutes to 1 hour before sexual activity. You may take it up to 4 hours before sexual activity. Do not take Viagra more than once per day.
    Viagra can help you have an erection when sexual stimulation occurs. An erection will not occur just by taking a pill. Follow your doctor's instructions."
    http://www.drugs.com/viagra.html
    The technician who did the blood test indicated this was an overdose of normal amounts he would expect to find in someone's blood. See the complaint.
    Fact: this information on Viagra did not appear in the Cincinatti Enquirer story, which appeared June 29. Nor is this fact in the story that appeared June 30.
    Also not appearing in the story was other information from the complaint, including that Mecklenbourg was driving with an expired Ohio license. It expired 04/01/2011, and the date of his arrest was 4/23/2011. The car he was driving had Kentucky temporary tags, and he was arrested in Indiana. Source: complaint.
    Hope that helps clarify things.

    ReplyDelete
  57. In condsideration of the buzz generated by PointRoll's Tap That Ad marketing, going forward our mother-focused websites will be rebranded MomsLickMe and will feature slightly different photo galleries.

    ReplyDelete
  58. Mecklenborg's law firm represents Procter & Gamble. And the managing partner is chairman of the Cincinnati Chamber. That should tell you all you need to know.

    ReplyDelete
  59. Whoa. Yes it does, 5:40 p.m. Thanks for the nugget!

    ReplyDelete
  60. Has the Enquirer FOIA'd Mecklenborg's e-mail, text messages and any other public documents?

    How about ABC license, annual inspection and other public records for the strip club? How many police citations has the place received? Has Mecklenborg ever intervened?

    Has the club's owners made campaign contributions to Mecklenborg?

    ReplyDelete
  61. Jim, we're talking the Cincinnati Enquirer here, whose legacy as a powderpuff looks destined to remain intact under Carolyn Washburn. FOIA stuff isn't tweetable, and soccer moms in the middle-class burbs wouldn't be interested anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  62. Anonymous said that Bernardin died "four decades ago" and then he later said in another post he died in 1966. He actually died in 1996. Pretty easy to check on that small detail. I have no idea what he is referring to with his satanic rape story but there was a lawsuit filed by a man who claimed that Bernadin molested him when he was in Cincinnati. The man lost the suit I believe and later recanted the whole thing when Bernadin was dying. He also didn't have liver cancer. It was pancreatic cancer. This stuff is pretty necessary because Bernardin is universally regarded as one of the greatest leaders of the Catholic Church in Chicago.

    ReplyDelete

Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.