The Cincinnati Streetcar Study was presented to City Council yesterday. There was little to no media attention giving the meeting publicity, but the media outlets were quick to report on the presentation after it happened. Interestingly enough the Cincinnati Business Courier and Cincinnati Enquirer had notably different takes/spins on the same story.
The most noticeable was the difference in headlines. The Enquirer’s read “Streetcar Price Tag: $100 million”…while the Business Courier’s headline read: “Study: Downtown streetcar could have $1.9B impact.” But nothing new with that…the Cincinnati Enquirer has had a consistently negative stance on events occurring within the inner-city.
However the differences do not stop there. The Enquirer cited that the total cost of build out would be $100 million; while the Business Courier wrote that it would cost $88 million. So, who’s right?? Well the Enquirer could have been rounding the $88 million up, but that would be a stretch even for the lousy Enquirer. The most likely explanation is that the Enquirer was using the higher of the two estimates. Most likely the system will only cost $88 million to build, but there is a chance that the price tag balloon to $100 million. The study put that in there to be safe and make sure they covered all of their bases…well it’s refreshing to see that the Enquirer choose the more negative spin on a positive story going on in the inner-city!