Carolyn Washburn has been hired as editor and vice president at The Cincinnati Enquirer, the newspaper announced today. A Greater Cincinnati native, Washburn currently is editor at The Des Moines Register in Iowa.

Washburn, 48, previously worked with Enquirer Publisher Margaret Buchanan while both were at The Idaho Statesman. Buchanan will be Washburn's new boss and made the selection. Washburn begins her new job Jan. 10.

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After more than a week of rumors, it was made official today: Enquirer Executive Editor Tom Callinan will retire at year's end to accept a professorship at the University of Cincinnati.

In an e-mail sent to staffers, Enquirer Publisher Margaret Buchanan announced the retirement and said Callinan's replacement would be named "shortly after the first of the year."

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Well, maybe not everything, but it’s difficult to fit the various aspects of starting and maintaining an online journal in a mere 20 minutes.

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Northern Kentucky-based public radio station WNKU (89.7 FM) will more than triple its population reach with today's announcement that it's acquired three stations: 105.9 FM and 910 AM in Middletown (both currently WPFB) and 104.1 FM in Portsmouth (currently WPAY). The station's normal daily programming will be simulcast on the new frequencies beginning Feb. 1.

In particular, 105.9 FM has strong reach throughout the city of Cincinnati, including downtown, areas where reception for 89.7 FM can be hit or miss.

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The new year already is looking a lot like the old one for employees at The Enquirer.

Workers at Cincinnati's only remaining daily newspaper got some bad news Wednesday: They can expect to take another five-day furlough during the first quarter of 2011. Robert J. Dickey,  who is U.S. newspaper division president at The Gannett Co., The Enquirer's parent firm, announced the latest round of furloughs in a memo sent to workers.

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I have to pay more attention to The Enquirer's websites. That’s apparently where the fun is.

Former Cincinnatian Peter Heimlich follows our Sole Surviving Daily online and on his blog, The Sidebar, he noted two photos that suggest web posts don't get the same alert editing as those in print.

One photo this week showed a male Rick Santorum critic holding a sign that defined “santorum” as “a frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter sometimes resulting as a bi-product of anal sex” and telling readers to “Google it.” That leads to the “definition” by sex advice columnist and gay rights activist Dan Savage.

Heimlich said The Enquirer took down the photo when he asked about it.

Another Enquirer photo faux pas was first caught by The Political Daily Download blog. This one involved another anti-Santorum poster, this one held by a woman. It had the former senator and lobbyist’s smiling face and said, “Doesn’t support products made for women’s reproductive organs” and, in much larger print, “IS A DOUCHEBAG.”

A similar photo replaced it online.

A few weeks ago, I caught this story as it was firing up: Sacramento, Calif., morning radio hosts Rob Williams and Arnie States spent more than a half-hour making disparaging and dehumanizing comments about transgendered children on their May 28 radio show. People were pretty up in arms about it. I was among the hundreds of people who wrote letters to the station manager expressing my unwillingness to tolerate such content.

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Everyone in the media — and indeed everyone who cares about the First Amendment — is mourning the loss of Dick Goehler, a leading attorney at Cincinnati's Frost Brown Todd law firm who passed away yesterday after battling leukemia. Dick's practice focused on media law and represented media clients in all aspects of First Amendment and newsroom-related matters, including CityBeat.

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The UK furniture store Habitat capitalized on the Iranian political crisis on their Web site using Twitter keywords to lure potential customers who, instead of shopping, were looking for news on more mundane matters — human rights violations, political unrest, that sort of junk.

Has it really come to this?

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Ending a seven-month suspension from the air, The SistaHood Show is returning to its weekly berth at WAIF (88.3 FM) beginning today.

The program, co-hosted by Victoria Straughn and Crystal Allen, was a casualty of the ongoing strife at the community radio station between many longtime volunteer programmers and Board Chairman Donald Shabazz, about how he manages the station.

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