Out of focus

Take a look at the top of the front page of the Enquirer today. The top third of the page is Bengals stuff, the middle third is directs you to "The Challenge of Autism" way back in the Life section. That's two-thirds of your first impression of the paper eaten up by stuff that's not hard news. Unless you're a hermit in this city you already knew the Bengals lost, and the autism article isn't need-to-know stuff. After that, you get news on the Hawaii quake (check the headline in the paper; I think, by law, you have to say that a quake "rocks") and some tree-eating bugs, written by an "Enquirer contributer" and an Enquirer reporter.

What is it the Enquirer wants you to focus on? The editors who choose these stories are sending you a message, and the message is, if it's hard news, we really don't want to tell you about it. How about the story on Page 3, the one from the New York Times that says the GOP is pulling support from Sen. DeWine? They'd rather serve up a Halloween story, two weeks before Halloween.