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Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park infographics: what's built/what's coming/what's missing, who's responsible, + project FAQ/timeline (pinned post)

"Unreliable Sources" redux: only one of three dailies covers the Forest City conference call

The New York Daily News came out the worst among the three New York daily newspapers in the IFC Media Project's "Unreliable Sources" segment Tuesday on coverage of Atlantic Yards.

After all, a former reporter said Forest City Ratner executives got her bounced from covering Atlantic Yards, and an unnamed source blamed it directly on Bruce Ratner.

Then again, the Daily News is the only one of the three to today cover the Forest City Enterprises conference call with investment analysts in which the parent company acknowledged that the market would determine the pace of Atlantic Yards.

That directly contradicts Bruce Ratner's public pledge--delivered prominently last May in the Daily News--that “[w]e anticipate finishing all of Atlantic Yards by 2018,” and the Daily News rightly called that a "reversal."

Prominence vs. absence

The Daily News article, though placed online in the Brooklyn section, appears on page 3 of the print edition, a deservedly prominent place. I have previously criticized the Daily News for relegating important AY stories to the edition distributed only in Brooklyn.

(I still think the article left unrebutted the developer's claims that litigation is the cause of the current work stoppage.)

The New York Post, whose reporter covering Brooklyn development lamented to the cameras that there was a lack of information about Atlantic Yards, ignored the conference call.

The New York Times, which has neglected Atlantic Yards and other development news only to play periodic catch-up, ignored the conference call.

The Times sees itself as a national newspaper. Then again, it should be news when FCE head Chuck Ratner says, "The near-term effect of these [moves] will be to transition Forest City from a development company with an operating portfolio to an operating company with a development capacity."

Comments

  1. To your point about the national significance and the NY Times's pass, The Wall St. Journal, a national newspaper, covered the conference call.

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