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October 9, 2010
The power of the press
Rumur
Here is an examination of how the mainstream media did such a poor job of covering the Atlantic Yards fight.
In 2010 it is time for us, as a society, to take a hard look at the role of the news media in our political and financial systems. After 7 years of following the Atlantic Yards development project I am troubled by both the print and TV media’s inability or unwillingness to engage in any level of real reporting on this story.
When Forest City Ratner’s project was announced in Dec of 2003 we were compelled to start our documentary because everything that we read was simply a regurgitation of press releases. Not one reporter looked to urban planners or others in government who might be able to respond critically to the information flowing from the developer and their government partners. In the days following the announcement of the project I talked to many of my neighbors about what was really going on, but I had no luck finding out useful or credible information. Those 7 long years ago, blogs were far from being a significant source of information and Facebook had not been launched, and as such the web was not a very useful source of information. The developer had staged a fancy press conference complete with pop stars (jay-z), sports stars (Bernard King), and starchitects (Gehry) in order to distract people from the enormity of what they were proposing. It worked.
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When the project was announced, one of the main complaints by those opposing it, was that all of the developers promises were unenforceable. They also objected to its massive scale, enormous government subsidies, lack of public process and oversight, and the abuse of eminent domain. However, all of these complaints were waved away by saying that the project would bring enormous benefits.
Now the land has been seized, the streets have been closed, the subsidies have been given, and when the developer admits that he doesn’t plan to build the press barely covers it, and only as part of a story about the unveiling of a private plaza at the site.
Click on the link to get a fuller picture of how the press stood on the sidelines regurgitating press releases, virtually forcing others to get the story of the Atlantic Yards land grab to the public.
Posted by steve at October 9, 2010 8:12 AM