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July 17, 2006
Today's rally coverage in the mainstream media
The press mostly hooked onto the celebrities who came out yesterday.
In addition, it seems like some in the press are obsessed with numbers and race, so we'll put our two cents in to start.
NLG on numbers:
4,000 or 2,000? What we DO know is that clearly more than 2,000 people came out on a 90-degree-plus day, for a rally where organizers weren't busing in crowds to give out free sandwiches & t-shirts, or disappointing folks seeking affordable housing applications.
NLG on race:
The opposition is never going to be as dark-skinned as the pro-Ratner crowd, because they are being drawn from folks across different neigborhoods, races and classes and the entire political spectrum.
If Ratner wanted more white faces amongst his supporters, he would have paid for them.
Here's today's coverage:
1010 WINS, Actors Join Atlantic Yards Project Protest
This brief and straightforward account of the rally leads off with Steve Buscemi and Rosie Perez, and ends with Forest City Ratner's PR guru Joe DePlasco's stock assurance that "People have legitimate concerns that we have addressed."
AM NY, Neighbors and celebs protest Atlantic Yards
AM NY City Editor Michael Clancy's article focused on the program on the stage. The online version is running this slideshow and a readers' poll.
Metro NY, Protesters: Arena on slippery slope
Metro's Brooklyn beat reporter Amy Zimmer put the figure at "hundreds," which is pretty much disputed by all of the other coverage. Two paragraphs of copy went to Community Board 8 member and Ratner supporter Meredith Staton, who played the race card. The heat must have gotten to Zimmer who repriced the $3.5-billion project at a bargain-basement $2.5 billion.
NY Daily News, Real housing for the real Brooklyn
No rally coverage in the News, but the editorial page continues it's scathing attackes on Atlantic Yards opponents.
First the editorial slams Rosie trying to start a class war:
Yo, Rosie. This isn't Mayberry; it's Prospect Heights, and Prospect Heights and all of Brooklyn desperately need affordable housing. Those who would benefit are not the "filthy rich." Indeed, that term more aptly applies to smug celebs who are slamming the project from the comfort of their homes in California and the Hamptons. [Huh?]
...and then whitewashes Ratner's affordable housing information session:
Last week, more than 2,500 real New Yorkers packed a ballroom at the Brooklyn Marriott to hear a presentation on the estimated 2,250 units of low-cost housing that would be built as part of Atlantic Yards.
The New's editorial page is really going out on a limb these days. To call the 2,250 units "low-cost" goes well beyond ACORN's low- to medium-income claims.
NY Post, B'KLYN STARS COME OUT TO RIP RATNER
The brief article homes in on the star factor:
Thousands of Brooklynites, including some born-and-bred celebrities, rallied in Grand Army Plaza yesterday to protest the $3.5 billion Atlantic Yards project - charging that it would turn Downtown Brooklyn into "Skyscraper City."
The NY Times, Crowd Gathers to Protest Size of Atlantic Yards Plan
The Times reporter Thomas J. Leuck writes that this was "the largest public demonstration so far by opponents of the Atlantic Yards project."
The event was organized by Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, a group whose advisory board includes Brooklyn residents active in film, music and literature. The actors Steve Buscemi and Rosie Perez, both Brooklyn residents and advisers to the group, appeared briefly on a makeshift stage in front of a sign that read “Brooklyn’s Neighborhoods Say No.”
“I’m not a politician or activist,” Mr. Buscemi told the crowd. He read a poem that he said he had written to protest the project, which included the line “I’ve played a lot of crazies, but this seems insane.”
The article also ran the DePlasco stock-quote-of-the-day and a disclosure of the Times-Ratner business relationship (is the "Gray Lady" is getting better at the disclosure thingie?).
Posted by lumi at July 17, 2006 10:38 AM