Joe Nuxhall dies
Every newspaper must anticipate the deaths of famous and infamous local people, so I'm sure the Enquirer has files prepared on people like Carl Lindner and Bobbie Sterne. Joe Nuxhall died too late last evening to make this morning's paper, so the Enquirer is serving up its coverage on the web. Here's what the Enquirer web site has prepared for Joe Nuxhall: Life of a Legend. This is a shoddy little piece of Flash that seems fixated on presidential inaugurations and wars and major moments in Reds history, but not on Joe. There isn't a single Nuxhall-related entry for the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. There's a 1967 entry for Joe's move to the broadcast booth, and Joe isn't mentioned again in his own "life" until 2002, when it's noted he suffered a heart attack. We'll miss Joe, and let's hope the coverage improves.
posted by Newsache at 8:56 AM
15 Comments:
Did you happen to notice that enquirer.com did not post the story until well after 7:00am?
Your criticism of the Enquirer's NOT representing Joe's life in its timeline was taken WAAAY out of context. The headline mentioned major milestones that took place DURING his life. To see the actual and comprehensive online posting(s) from the Enquirer, visit: http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage.
Regarding yet more ignorant criticism of the Enquirer's online posting--don't pretend that media outlets got word of Joe's death at 11PM last night. They didn't. This is a newspaper, folks--not CNN.
So, you're saying that the Enquirer shouldn't post something of this magnitude on its web site immediately? The police blotter stuff was getting plenty of attention.
The Cincinnati Enquirer is supposed to be hooked deeply into the hometown community. Joe was at a Mercy Hospital, probably on his deathbed. There is no excuse for missing such a story that took place on deadline. This newspaper is so unattached, so without ties and roots and connections, that it missed out. It had to wait for an official announcement? A press release? Piffle.
A newspaper rooted in its community knows what is happening, people love to tell it what is going on, it is intimate with the town it covers. The Enquirer's performance was miserable, really a non-performance delivered by a washed up enterprise.
They didn't get the story in print today. And they say that is WAAAY out of context. No journalist wrote that, a line from a hack flack who is paid to propagandize like a functionary defending Pravda. Lies cannot trump laziness.
Could you imagine Bart Starr lying in a Green Bay Hospital, taking his last breath, and the paper there not knowing until the Packers sent a press release? Or Cleveland waiting for a press release about Jim Brown or Bob Feller? Think of The Chicago Tribune and Sun Times sitting around with their thumbs stuck you know where while Ditka croaked until the press release arrived. You can't think of such a thing.
This proves the Cincinnati Enquirer is a joke, a national laughingstock. It is owned by a corporation more interested in its profits than serving its subscribers and advertisers, the people who are the customers, the people whom it fails to serve. This newspaper with absentee ownership has one purpose: Take the money and run. It is like a slumlord milking a property. It is like a railroad that always runs late, an airline that loses luggage and seldom is on time, a utility that can't keep the electric lines hooked up, a Chinese toy manufacturer that uses cheap paint to save nickels over the good stuff. Cincinnatians need to say, Enough is Enough.
I noticed there was some type of banner on the enquirer web page this morning about papers being late due to technical difficulties. Were they trying to stop the presses to get the Nuxhall story in?
You follow Winchell?! What lazy finger pointing. You step up to home plate and make it work, then. The times they are a changin', and the good guys are still trying to make it right. Stop your arrogant, victimized name-calling, Winchell. You too, Newsache. I now pronounce you booooring. It's "journalists" like you who can EASILY cross your arms and wag your finger from the stands. Some of the team is still playing the game, trying for a win, in spite of the chaos of things you don't even zoom out to see. Jeez. Grow up!!
Anons 2:01 and 10:23 are probably Enquirer management. Sure, NewsAche has some sort of axe to grind, but harlequinesque retorts such as yours will not stop the expose!
A couple points of clarification:
The story was first posted a little before 7:00, not "well after."
The newsroom's front-end editorial system went kerplooie right around deadline Thursday night, making it impossible to send pages to Western and throwing editors into a panic. And understandably so. They were still scrambling hours after everyone has usually gone home. Unfortunately, Joe picked that night to pass on.
I agree with the criticism of the Flash graphic, it really didn't do much to inform the story. More of a whiz-bang, because-we-can-do-it type of deal. Ehh.
I thought the rest of the stories, video slideshow etc. they had in the can were pretty good, though. They rolled all that stuff out immediately, and by the time most Cincinnatians were arriving for work around town, there were already new stories posted with reax from Fairfield, photos from GABP/Joe's statue, et al.
I thought they did a comprehensive job from that point, and the coverage in Saturday's paper was exhaustive.
Apart from the Flash graphic I don't see much to be critical of in this case, and even that wasn't too egregious of a crime.
How many times do we have to hear the same excuses, explanations and blame about the Enquirer's basic failings? Winchell hits the mark. When the prime directive is to wire all available profit to the mother ship in Northern Virginia, there's nothing left but spare change to invest in the shrinking local paper. The result is fewer reporters and editors, no genuine connection to the community beyond obligatory and self-serving membership in local business groups, a revolving-door advertising staff, employees waiting for their jobs to be outsourced, a laughingstock alt-weekly, and third-rate leaders who spend all their time on the kneepad, hoping that Gannett will recognize their oral talents and promote them to a better title at another Gannett paper where the staff and community won't know what empty shells they really are. This city deserves a locally owned newspaper. Gannett is to Cincinnati what Turkey is to Kurdistan, what Myanmar is to its own people. Time for a revolt.
To Anon 10:23 and 2:01 --
Winchell is here for Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea.
And I see you have dodged the question. You say the newspaper's technology went kerplooie on the night of Joe Nuxhall's passing, but you do not say that at the kerplooie moment the technology happened to include any news of Joe's demise.
That is a significant sidestep. The truth goes like this: The Enquirer did not learn of Joe's passing until the Enquirer received a press release. Technology had nothing to do with missing the story.
The Enquirer did not have the real news for its customers -- the subscribers and advertisers who foot the bills -- when the real news happened. The Enquirer takes the money out of Cincinnati and delivers a second-rate product in exchange.
Indeed, there is really no reason to read the Nuxhall stuff online in the Enquirer. Its broadcast competitors had essentially the same material. The Reds Web site has probably superior material. Google, Yahoo and other online operations could take you to anything about Nuxhall that was online anywhere. Fact is, The Enquirer's one unique platform -- the print newspaper that provides most of the company's revenue and its only edge in the marketplace -- didn't have the story. This is not mediocre performance, it is non-performance. To use a baseball analogy, bush league.
Not to mention that most of Enquirer's stuff is at least a day old, so being a day late with Nuxhall is in keeping with their usual standards.
Why people even bother to subscribe to print newspapers anyway is beyond my comprehensive.
It's old news!
I read somewhere people across the country are switching to the internet, but here in Cincinnati -- Enquirer has actually increased its circulation!!!
Do people here even realize there are alternatives? Why do they stick with the old, out moded things?
Imagine if all those millions of $$ paid to Gannett Mgmt were actually spent on providing reporters, and staff to actually report the news.
Amazing how The Enquirer can "cook" the books to
show a circulation increase after the entire customer service staff was laid off and the work outsourced to Oklahoma.
I wonder when the printed product will be outsourced to another market as well.
Doesn't it take "reporters" to keep their positions and phones handy to have the pre-written obit ready to drop once they got the word? That would mean that The Enquirer would have to hire real reporters- we have all of what 5 these days who sit and re-write wire copy? It is sick. Amazing that I can read the AP wire, NYT, Chicago Trib., and LA Times along w/ the electronic stuff before 7 am and have my fill of news for the day. Who needs the Enquirer for 2 day old news?
And the Cleveland Plain Dealer broke virtually the entire pete Rose gambling story. 'nuff said...
I'm fairly certain the Enquirer learned of Nuxhall's death the same way any other paper would - when the family gave the hospital permission to release the info (or did it themselves). Those of us WORKING in journalism know about those nifty healthcare privacy laws that keep the reporter who was on the story a week ahead of time from getting any info until someone said they could. Try at least pretending to be informed, folks.
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