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October 20, 2009
The Times mentions FCR's bailout of ACORN only parenthetically, claims city agreed to help finance AY housing plan
Atlantic Yards Report
In a front-page article last Friday, October 16, the New York Times finally reported that the controversial housing activist group ACORN had been bailed out by a $1.5 million grant/loan from developer Forest City Ratner, a partner with ACORN New York on the Atlantic Yards project.
But that wasn't the point of the article, headlined Acorn’s Woes Strain Its Ties to Democrats.
Rather, the information was presented parenthetically, a variation of "rowback," which former Times Public Editor Daniel Okrent described in his 3/14/04 column as "a way that a newspaper can cover its butt without admitting it was ever exposed."
Beyond that, the article cited "[t]he city’s agreement to help finance the [Atlantic Yards housing] plan."
That overstates the city's commitment, which is no more than conceptual, and should be corrected, given that it could mislead readers into thinking that the affordable housing--the major source of political support for the project--is guaranteed.
Just how long has it taken The Times to get around to reporting on Forest City's bailout of ACORN?
In this case, the Times wasn't publishing an unacknowledged correction, as is typical with "rowback," but providing information it owed its readers months ago--and without acknowledging the delay or that the information had been published elsewhere.
Consider this sequence:
- the bailout occurred in August 2008
- a Times reporter knew about it in September 2008 (and called ACORN's actions "incredible")
- it was reported by me in December 2008
- I sent an open letter to the Public Editor in April 2009
- it was mentioned in a Congressional report in July 2009
- the New York Post mentioned it nearly a month ago
The Times's vague formulation placed the bailout in context of the long Atlantic Yards fight, but did not mention the date it occurred.
NoLandGrab: Better late than never?
Posted by eric at October 20, 2009 10:19 AM