No Land Grab

We called for an explanation.

"It's clearly a newspaper Web site. We're not masquerading as a Forest City Web site," Wintrob explained. "I think it's a fairly above-board and honest thing."

He added, "If you go to the site, you see all of our stories -- pro, negative, and neutral."

We found negative and neutral, but not much in the way of pro-Ratner stories (unless you consider "Land grab goes to court" to be complimentary).

Well, there was a mostly positive article by reporter Deborah Kolben about the July 25 opening of Target in Ratner's Atlantic Terminal mall. Kolben left the Brooklyn Papers shortly thereafter. No, we're not suggesting anything.

Weintrob said people who type forestcityratner.com into a browser are seeking information about the company, and his newspaper's Web site provides it.

But Forest City Ratner spokesman Joe DePlasco saw another motive.

My guess is that they know people are more likely to get honest information by going to Forest City Ratner than to Brooklyn Papers and they are trying to kidnap them along the way. As everyone knows, Mr. Weintrob is completely opposed to this project, which is fine, but it would still be nice of him to let his reporters provide accurate and objective information. But hey, it's his newspaper and he wants to impose his view upon his people."

Weintrob has written columns against Ratner's project but said forestcityratner.com links "to our coverage of what Forest City is doing in Brooklyn. They're news stories. I wouldn't call it an advocacy site for anything."