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January 31, 2010
Atlantic Yards Report: Brinckerhoff Video, Izod's Empty, Times Misses On Arena Opening
Atlantic Yards Report
Could the Atlantic Yards arena open in 2011-12? The Times won't publish a correction
It's a little like something out of Beckett, the attempt to get the New York Times to acknowledge errors in its Atlantic Yards coverage. Sure, the Times sometimes prints corrections when the evidence is overwhelming.
But too often the Times goes through gyrations to avoid such acknowledgments. Unfortunately, the readers are still misled.
Below is the latest.
The 2011-12 arena?
I sent a request for a correction to the New York Times Senior Editor/Standards Greg Brock on Friday:
Today, the Times reported in Seeking Fans in 2 States, Despite a Record of 4-40 (1/29, Metro) that "the move [to Brooklyn] is not expected to take place for at least another full season."
The current season ends in the spring of 2010. The next season ends in the spring of 2011. Today's article leaves open the possibility that the move could take place during the 2011-12 season.
However, the Times reported last month that "[t]hey hope to open the new arena by June 2012."
That's after the second full season.
And just the other day an executive from Forest City Ratner said construction of the arena (which hasn't yet begun) would take 28 months. See the end of the second video embedded here.
I recognize that the statement that "the move [to Brooklyn] is not expected to take place for at least another full season" is not technically inaccurate. But it is misleadingly imprecise. As you in October 2007 told an interviewer: I don’t know if you read our corrections much, but we often say we referred “imprecisely” to something, which means that we weren’t 100 percent wrong.
I think that this is one of those cases.
The Times's response
Brock responded promptly:
You are correct that it is not technically inaccurate. We were careful to say "at least" another full season. That much we are certain of. They may get their wish and have it going BY June 2012 as we said. Or it may be 2014, who knows what problems might be ahead. "At least" another season conveys to our readers -- who are fairly sharp little cookies -- that it's not going to be anytime real soon and that we, nor anyone, really knows.
I don't agree that this was imprecise. No correction is warranted.
...
The bottom line regarding the Nets' planned move to Brooklyn is that it won't happen within the second full season, despite the Times's willingness to leave that suggestion open.
In the Times this week, photos of the Nets (one supplied by the team) but not the empty Izod Center
Coverage of the Nets by the New York Times, Bruce Ratner's business partner seems to downplay the pitiful attendance at New Jersey Nets games.
Photos don't lie, right?
Two photos of the New Jersey Nets were published in the New York Times in the past two days, and both were more generous than they had to be. They didn't convey an essential fact of the team's season: very few people are coming to the Izod Center to watch the league's worst team.
At left is the photo that appeared (cropped somewhat, in black and white) in yesterday's print New York Times, to accompany an article headlined Wizards and Nets in One Unenchanted Evening.
It's a perfectly good photo of hoops action. But it doesn't say quite enough.
Overestimated attendance
A section of the article amplified the headline:
But for spectacles, this matchup was not one to be highlighted, not with a terrible team hosting another poor team engulfed by the worst scandal of the year. If for three hours the N.B.A. could pretend one of its games never happened, this would probably be the occasion.
The Nets have the third-lowest attendance average in the N.B.A., listed generously at 13,484 per home game. At their previous home game, against the Clippers, they announced fewer than 10,000 fans, but people at the game estimated there may not have been half that many.
Here's an interview that covers some of the points of last Friday's hearing as well as some "what-if's".
After the hearing Friday in Kings County Supreme Court on eminent domain for Atlantic Yards, Matthew Brinckerhoff, attorney for those challenging eminent domain, answered a few questions at a brief press conference outside on Jay Street.
Expectations from hearing
Had he had expected Justice Abraham Gerges to transfer title, as had been sought by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) or had he expected the judge to put the condemnation on hold, as he did.
"I did not expect him to issue an order today; I would've been very surprised," responded Brinckerhoff, noting the flurry of legal arguments that had been submitted in just the past few days. "He has to at least consider in some way, shape, or form all the arguments we submitted.
Posted by steve at January 31, 2010 8:20 AM