Guest Post: Barry Horstman Only A Slightly Better Journalist Than Most Third-Graders

One of my buddies (who will remain unnamed) sent me this earlier today. I decided its brilliance needed a platform and, after receiving his approval, I now present it to you. P.S. It's a lot funnier if you read the article below first.

-Josh

If Barry Horstman continues to write articles for the Cincinnati Enquirer at his current, consistent level of low quality, it will continue to be only slightly a higher level of writing than that characteristic of an elementary school child.

A Cincinnati-area remedial school teacher last week compared several of Horstman's recent articles to a handful of cursive handwriting lessons completed by her second and third-grade students. She stated that "Barry's writing skills were better than her barely literate students', but only slightly."

This comparison likely will open another chapter in the quest to determine how Horstman talked a "major" newspaper into giving him a job.

The reporter did, in fact, score higher not only on writing skills than his seven year old competitors, but in penmanship as well. The teacher, who requested to remain anonymous, noted that he was "giddy as a schoolboy" when she gave him a gold star for his superb effort. Many of his colleagues recalled that the last time he was this excited, Ohio Governor John Kasich had just stripped state funds from the highest rated transportation project in the state, the Cincinnati Streetcar.

His competitors jealously complained about the unfairness of the contest, especially considering that they had only learned the alphabet a few years earlier and had not yet received lessons in esoteric material such as sentences or the difference between fact and fiction. Horstman retorted that also had not yet received instruction on the latter topic.

Letters from City Council members Leslie Ghiz and Charlie Winburn contested the findings, requesting documentation on every piece of minutia related to the report. The two determined that to avoid the wasting of taxpayers' money, they would instead waste taxpayers' time by hosting a meaningless special session concerning the veracity of the report. Vice Mayor Qualls, joined by Council members Thomas, Quinlivan and Young collectively face-palmed after receiving the news.

A joint press conference between leadership at COAST and Chris Smitherman consisted of nothing but the word "boondoggle" being shouted repeatedly for forty-five minutes.

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