The game of Cornhole has apparently spread from its modest beginnings in some West Sider's backyard all the way to the Northeast, thanks largely to a Fox News anchor who in 2005 took a set from his hometown back to New York and started teaching other people how to throw the beanbags at a hole in a piece of wood. The New York Times checks in with this report on the unfortunately named game. Now a bunch of mopes in Brooklyn are playing it, and it will probably be featured in a Kings of Leon video soon.

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The phone hacking scandal surrounding Rupert Murdoch’s British newspapers continues to explode, as the media baron and his son are appearing before a Parliament committee at this very moment. (Follow the proceedings on BBC’s web site here.)

Several U.S. media outlets have reminded the public that an American newspaper once faced its own phone hacking scandal, when The Cincinnati Enquirer was forced to apologize and pay $14 million to Chiquita Brands International in 1998 and renounce its investigative series on Chiquita and then-CEO Carl Lindner. So Cincinnati was on the cutting edge on yet another international trend.

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What did they know and when did they know it? Moreover, why aren't they commenting on it?

“They,” in this case, are leaders of the Ohio Republican Party. And “it” is the drunken driving arrest of State Rep. Robert Mecklenborg (R-Green Township). In the 16 days since the April arrest became publicized through the media, the state GOP has been curiously silent about the matter.

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In following with Cincinnati tradition, I'll begin this story by telling you where I went to high school.

In April of 2001, I was senior at Lakota East High School in West Chester. I was deeply involved with the school's enthusiastic journalism program. Unlike many teen-agers, I did not suffer from indecision. I knew I wanted to be a photojournalist.

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As additional information becomes known, an allegedly impartial poll about Cincinnati's streetcar project touted by The Enquirer becomes more suspect. A person who took the poll says the questions seemed like “propaganda,” while the pollster violated the accepted standards of the polling industry.

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There it was, splashed across the front page of Sunday's Enquirer in big, bold letters: “Poll Puts Chabot in Lead.” The headline used for the Internet version was, as usual, even more excitable: “Poll: Chabot Leads Big Over Driehaus.”

The article was about a poll that Cincinnati's only daily newspaper commissioned on Ohio's 1^stCongressional District race, using the Survey USA polling firm. Its results show Republican Steve Chabot leading Democratic incumbent Steve Driehaus by 12 points, or 53 percent to 41 percent.

But does the poll provide a complete picture of the race?

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An unusual online exchange Tuesday between an occasional CityBeat freelancer and an Enquirer sports blogger led to the blogger’s own comments being deleted for violating the newspaper’s terms of service.

The comment seems to have been deleted by a moderator for being racist against Hispanics.

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Despite numerous examples of intolerance and hatred at its events and multiple polls showing the group represents only a small minority of the populace, the noisy Tea Party movement continues to gain an unwarranted amount of media attention as it strives for respectability.

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(UPDATE AT BOTTOM) Fox News commentator Sean Hannity’s participation in a Cincinnati Tea Party event today is drawing sharp criticism from experts on journalism ethics.

Hannity will be taping his TV show tonight during the local Tea Party’s second annual Tax Day rally, which is being held at the University of Cincinnati’s Fifth Third Arena.

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When Katty Kay was asked during her visit here last week about the most trustworthy news source, she joked that her bosses at the British Broadcasting Corp. would not be pleased if she answered anything but “BBC.”

Beyond loyalty, she was right in a global sense. For decades, BBC’s World Service has been the most trusted news source in dozens of languages.

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