Enquirer bungles Bengals coverage

Mark Curnutte's story Tuesday morning about Joseph's arrest early Monday contained nothing but arrest report details and junk from his notebooks. (Note: I would link to that first story on Joseph's arrest, but it doesn't appear to be on the Enquirer's web site any longer. Check for yourself here. This story seems to have taken its place, but it's not the story that was published Tuesday morning.) He had all day to work on that story, and the only fresh quote in it was a no-comment from the Bengals' Jack Brennan. In today's story Curnutte finally quotes veterans about the situation. Did Curnutte bother to ask any of them what they could do to show some leadership on this? Asking questions in a tough situation is not the same as asking tough questions. Curnutte doesn't push anyone on this topic, which results in a story where everyone is allowed to pass the buck. Curnutte is too busy quoting song lyrics (and then defending quoting song lyrics) to do much reporting.

What makes this all a little more ridiculous is that the Enquirer stuck little postage-stamp-sized promo for cincymoms.com, its latest lame-o web site. The promo says "Hey Moms: Do you talk to your kids when athletes get in trouble? Talk about it at our new Web site." The answer is apparently "no". When you get to the web site, there's no sign of any discussion on the Bengals.

THURSDAY UPDATE: Curnutte's "analysis" this morning is the first story this week that wasn't on the front page, and why should it be? He says he canvassed players, but how many? He never says. He quotes exactly one player, Levi Jones, and the story says nothing new.