Saturday, March 17, 2012

Cincy | New details on accused soldier's local ties

Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians, "very likely" grew up in Greater Cincinnati, graduated from Norwood High School and committed to play football at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Delhi Township, The Cincinnati Enquirer is now reporting.

The paper's account, by staff reporter Carrie Whitaker and the Associated Press, is well worth reading.

Yesterday, the military for the first time identified Bales, 38, as the suspect in the horrific killings last Sunday that left nine children dead.

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  14. The purpose of this post is to discuss the Enquirer's reporting -- not to engage in a debate about terrorism, etc.

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  15. It appears the Huffington Post picked up most of their info from Cincy earlier. The details look similar.

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  16. has anyone checked Amir's green-card?

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  17. Other outlets had better info including better Cincy info. The story does not make clear what was original reporting and what was infused from the AP. Reads like a quick Gannett desk job to me.

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  18. The Enquirer response to the worst alleged military atrocity since My Lai is to put an education writer and someone from the Kentucky bureau on the story and slap it together with AP and Seattle Times stories. Who did the write thru? Why not staff lead writer?
    The Enquirer, if it really considers itself a major player, should have put its top reporters on this story...Horn, Horstman, Radel, Perry, McLaughlin and they should have had an editor assigned to actually go into the newsroom and coordinate coverage. I am willing to beat no assigning editor was asked to go into the newsroom and coordinate coverage. This is a huge story. I agree with the prior poster the Enquirer wasted an opportunity to shine and provide its readers with something they couldn't get elsewhere. I wonder if editors Wasbhurn and Engebrecht didn't want to pay overtime so they didn't call in the folks who could do the story. Not knocking the two who helped out, but needed a serious push to uncover more about this guy. In fact, they should have a reporter assigned to this story until further notice. Readers should be ashamed of the product they get. The editors of this newspaper continue to show a total lack of concern for real news and a newspaper's real mandate (which isn't to coordinate coverage with advertising and promotions.) Shame, shame and more shame.

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  19. The Times, as it does so well, parachuted into Cincinnati and did a much better with the Bales story than the "hometown" paper.

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  20. There's strength in numbers.

    The NYT story carries a main byline, plus 10 contributing bylines from Tacoma and Seattle, Wash.; Norwood, Ohio; Miami, New York, and Washington, D.C.

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  21. That was the point I was trying to make earlier. Obviously, the Times thought the story extremely significant. Where was the hustle on the part of the Enquirer? Too many assigning editors home watching the NCAA tourney I bet. Probably could not have pulled the local news editor away from her TV!

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  22. Hometown advantage? Not in Cincy.

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  23. The Times writer who came to Cincinnati did a better job than the entire Enquirer.

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  24. It's fun and all to try to make the hometown folks look bad. But the first NYT story quoted Cincy. And much of the "much better" NYT story about his life in the States mirrors Cincy's...and I believe they got to the sources first. Both have a year book, football players, etc. (Like, the reporter NYT "dropped in" read the Cincy story, and called the same sources?) The Times story my be more colorful, lively writing, but that's what you'd expect. But the reporting is pretty similar, as far as the Cincy angle goes. Obviously, the Times focused much attention on time spent outside of Cincy, which Cincy didn't do.

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  25. The issue is not who wrote the best story, but why the Enquirer didn't step up on a huge story and call in their big guns - weekend or no weekend. That story wasn't updated once during the day. That is uninspired journalism.

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  26. And how many times was the Times story updated with Cincy info, or do you know? At a certain point, this in particular must have been a tough story to update. He hadn't lived in Cincy for years. Hey, his dog was BROWN! Update! And I am pretty sure that none of the frequent Cincy detractors would ever credit the paper with doing anything inspired even if it WAS inspired. It's all bad, not as good as the good old days, horrible execs, blah blah blah. As boring as reading the New Jersey and FLA Today crap.

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