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February 13, 2010
Owners' Counsel of America Honors Journalists for Investigative Reporting of Eminent Domain
PR-USA.Net
This article catches up with awards rewarded to two journalists including Atlantic Yards Report's Norman Oder.
As Oder professes skepticism of the developer's claims, the expected economic benefits of the project, and the fairness of the process, he comes closer to aligning himself with project opponents than with the government and developer. "My goal as a blogger is fairness, not some 'he said she said' version of objectivity," he asserts. He maintains rigorous standards, sourcing his work with links and critiquing project opponents when they stray from the facts.
Oder's work involves assessments of media coverage, reporting of events such as public hearings and oral arguments, and detailed analyses of legal briefs, environmental reports and other documents. His reporting bridges the gap between legal formality and ground-level reality by demonstrating that the state's claims of blight in and around the project footprint are suspect. Oder offers a longitudinal view of an enormously contested project while analyzing the process by which the city and New York State, considered to have the most condemnor-friendly eminent domain laws in the nation, go about development and condemnation.
Posted by steve at February 13, 2010 7:52 AM