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July 29, 2011
A paean to the New York Times in a New York Magazine cover story; missing is any recognition how the Times fails to cover Brooklyn (and AY)
Atlantic Yards Report
A New York Magazine cover story praising The New York Times provokes a little cold water from Norman Oder.
The article could have gone further to analyze how coverage of New York has been diminished.
Now the Times gives tougher scrutiny to Baghdad than to Brooklyn.
I'm not saying the Times doesn't publish Brooklyn feature, trend, and real estate stories. I'm saying their Brooklyn bureau is far smaller than their Baghdad bureau. And there's no priority on continuity and institutional memory.
And that leads to Atlantic Yards coverage (by a newbie to AY coverage) like the article I dissected 7/19/11, featuring lousy reasoning (why is it Atlantic Yards "opponents" are the only ones asked about the public interest?), basic factual errors (no, Sen. Chuck Schumer's promised 10,000 jobs had nothing to do with construction), and perfunctory wave at a complex controversy (Forest City Ratner's questionable use of the EB-5 program for immigrant investors).
Shouldn't the Times do a better job?
And isn't there another reason: Shouldn't the Times, given the parent company's business relationship with Forest City Ratner, in building the Times Tower, be exacting in its scrutiny of the developer?
Posted by eric at July 29, 2011 12:50 PM