If there's a Ground Zero for America's foreclosure mess outside of much of California and metro Las Vegas, it's probably Cleveland, the Northeast Ohio city known in most of the rest of the state as the Mistake on the Lake.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer's Mark Gillespie got out from behind his desk, committed some good old-fashioned journalism, and went looking for the mistakes that exacerbated the town's breathtaking home foreclosure rate. Lo and behold, he found that city government itself contributed mightily and extraordinarily negligently to the debacle. Go far enough into Gillespie's report, and you will also find an implicit admission that the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) also played a pivotal role (bold is mine):

How Cleveland aggravated its foreclosure crisis

The city of Cleveland has aggravated its vexing foreclosure problems and has lost millions in tax dollars by helping people buy homes they could not afford, a Plain Dealer investigation has found.

Somebody at the Columbus Dispatch has a bit of explaining to do.

You see, Ohio Governor's former Director of Community and Faith-Based Initiatives, one Robert "Eric" McFadden, after "years" of not getting caught, pleaded guilty last Thursday of two felonies for trying to market the "services" of a 17 year-old prostitute. Yes, a 17 year-old.

In his original report late Thursday morning on McFadden's plea -- a report no longer available at the paper's web site even though it is listed at a relevant site search (last item listed; screen cap is here for later reference) -- the Dispatch's Bruce Cadwallader gave a barely adequate description of the facts and circumstances surrounding both McFadden's day job and the double life that he had been leading "for years" up to his arrest in January.

But in his early-AM Friday report, which I have confirmed with a Dispatch representative is the one that went into the paper's July 10 print edition, Cadwallader "somehow" left out the "for years" reference, giving readers a clear and incorrect impression that McFadden had only recently begun his illicit activities.

How convenient.

Democratic Cincinnati City Councilwoman Laketa Cole was pulled over by city police on Wednesday afternoon along with a friend while each was driving their own motorcycle.

WCPO-TV Channel 9 investigated the incident, and found that Cole appeared to attempt to get special treatment to avoid having her friend's motorcycle seized.

The video verion of WCPO's report ultimately notes that Cole and her friend received tickets. But "somehow," the text that is supposed to reflect the content of the video does not.

The station did not mention Cole's Democratic Party affiliation in its report, or in its follow-up when Cole called to defend herself. The Cincinnati Democratic Committee endorsed Cole's reelection bid this November on April 8. The Cincinnati Enquirer's report on the incident also doesn't name Cole's party.

That's bad enough, but when Hamilton County Republican Party chairman Alex Triantafilou issued a press release denouncing Cole's apparent attempts at obtaining favoritism, the Enquirer only identified Triantafilou's party, and not Cole's (Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County).

Those who believe that Politico is a hangout for former establishment media journalists who want to recreate a combination of the New York Times and Washington Post on the web -- complete with the insufferable biases of those two publications -- can look to the disparate treatment of two challenges to party congressional leaders as affirmative evidence.

In a search on "Cindy Sheehan" at Politico, I found that in covering the congressional candidacy of former media darling Cindy Sheehan in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Northern California district, the online news site carried two tiny items. Only one of them was originally produced there.

In the 1950s, as then-Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R., Wis.) and his House Committee on Un-American Activities investigated liberal and progressive artists in search of Communist-oriented dissidents, Hellman and Bernstein collaborated on what would become one of several major works fomented by government activities: the play and film Cradle Will Rock, and Arthur Miller’s play and opera The Crucible are others.

Sometimes, readers must wonder if newspaper correspondents ever passed a class in basic civics.  If journalists had, they’d know that Congress consists of two bodies, the House and the Senate.  A member of one body doesn’t chair a committee from the other.  No Senator – not even Joe McCarthy – could run a House committee.  A clue might have been that his title was senator rather than congressman or representative, but perhaps that's expecting too much.