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December 29, 2006
Covering Atlantic Yards
Brooklyn Papers
Editorial
In an interview in this week’s Papers, the project’s biggest booster, Borough President Markowitz, calls us “biased” because our coverage revealed the shocking density of the project, the traffic it would cause, and the subsidy-enriched sweetheart deal Gov. Pataki’s cronies cooked up in Albany to make this project work for Ratner. (See the Markowitz interview on page 4 or listen to it at www.BrooklynPapers.com).Given how we’ve been attacked for such coverage — and the overwhelming support the project enjoys among city and state powerbrokers — many of our readers have wondered why we even bothered. Indeed, it would have been far easier for us to blow off Atlantic Yards, as did the daily papers, and our weekly competitor, the New York Post-owned, Sheepshead Bay-based, Courier-Life chain.
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So why did we persist in our aggressive reporting? Markowitz contends in the interview that we did it because we simply hate Bruce Ratner. We actually do not hate Bruce Ratner. This isn’t personal.Our obsession with the project’s taxpayer-supported financing, its outright lies about job creation, and its preposterous density is a reflection of exactly what journalists are supposed to do: question authority and ensure that elected officials are doing their jobs.
Posted by amy at December 29, 2006 8:47 AM