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July 9, 2009
Journalism of verification? Times won't back down from claim that there will "soon be a Barclays Center"
Atlantic Yards Report
The NY Times, utilizing snark typically reserved for the blogosphere, passes on Norman Oder's suggestion that the "Paper of Record" get out of the business of predicting the future:
A June 24 article on naming rights for the Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street subway station stated:
There will, however, soon be a Barclays Center, the sports arena planned as the focal point of the Atlantic Yards project...
No correction was printed and, five days later, in a roundup article June 29 on arenas, the Times reported:
Five major complexes — four existing and one planned — will soon be slugging it out within an area 30 miles wide.
...By the time the arena in Brooklyn, which will be called Barclays Center, is built, there will be a total of nearly 100,000 seats to fill, 365 days a year.
Senior Editor Greg Brock responded:
We have been very responsive to your queries in the past and have run corrections when appropriate. I do not think this rises to the level of a correction. I realize you monitor every word in these articles because you have your own perspective. But at some point, we have to use common sense on these points. I am sure you will not agree: but I think this is splitting hairs and not worthy of a correction.
[Read: We have tried to ignore you in the past and have run some corrections in order to try to get you to go away. I do not think you are right, because only a crazy person would read every word in these articles. But at this point, we are the arbiters of common sense, though I'm sure that you will not agree: you are wasting my time, go away.]
Norman Oder comes up with some hypothetical parallel language that might raise some eyebrows:
Let's try a thought experiment. What if the Times were to report today:
There will, however, soon be a nuclear war, a tactic planned as the focal point of North Korean foreign policy
For Mayor Bloomberg, there will, however, soon be a third term, a period planned as the focal point for his sustainability initiatives
NoLandGrab: Norman Oder's "journalism of verification" has a better batting average than the "Paper of Record," so you have to wonder who really has his "own perspective."
Posted by lumi at July 9, 2009 5:44 AM