As The Enquirer staff braces for another reduction in staff, the paper and its parent company might not yet have seen the full fallout of its decision to cut staff last year. Two of the newspaper’s former editors, Joe Fenton and Cathy Ruetter, have filed an age discrimination lawsuit against the newspaper and The Gannett Co.  

Until the other day, I thought Cincinnati police officers were too bright to confiscate cameras in a public place at a public meeting to which the public was invited. Hell, the owners of the cameras weren’t disrupting the meeting or photographing coppers using excessive force. But I was wrong. One of Cincinnati’s finest took two voters’ cameras on orders from U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Westwood) or people working for Chabot. It was a town meeting and Chabot was the speaker.  

Everybody understands that historical facts can be difficult to remember — boring topics, long-lost cultures, people who thought dinosaurs were real, etc. That’s why it wasn’t a big deal when Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann incorrectly described a couple of Revolutionary War battles and confused Elvis Presley’s birthday with his death (what’s the difference — he’s in Heaven now with all the black people whose music he stole).  

Dump consultants. Cancel audience-counting contracts. Fire click whores. Ice eyeballs. Adopt my cost-free 12-step program (actually 15) to save surviving news media ... from ourselves. Readers, viewers and listeners know we fill space and time with meaningless words. It goes beyond verbosity. It's insulting. Start the new year by embracing virtue.  

I just don't have time for the stupidity, ignorance, anger, obscenities and racism that anonymous online commenting encourages. In a more innocent online era, many daily papers and others opened themselves to online comments. It was to be an instant Letters to the Editor, a more personal connection with the reader. But the resulting toxic stream of comments have led The Enquirer and other Gannett dailies to hire an outside company, Pluck, to intervene on reader online comments.  

Gannett's Indianapolis Star has a real mess on its hands involving a breach of ethics and the readers' trust, started when the paper "repurposed" a three-year-old feature story and photo spread on summer camps in a new camp guide advertising section without the reporter's or photographer's knowledge. The old story was labeled "special advertising feature" and presented as if it contained up-to-date information. I asked Enquirer Editor Tom Callinan about his policy on the separation of news- and advertising-oriented content.  

By limiting home delivery to days that most appeal to advertisers (Thursday, Friday and Sunday) while reducing production and delivery costs on four days, The Detroit Free Times and Detroit News can save a lot of money and some journalists' jobs.