New York Times Didn’t Cover Biggest New York City Election Story As It Unfolded: The Insurgent Campaign of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez– And It Has National Repercussions

It was front page news in the Times, but the Times did not report events leading up to it as they unfolded.

This is about a major local and national news story that the New York Times didn’t cover as it unfolded . . .

Wednesday, the day after the primary elections it was on the front page of the New York Times: Democratic Power Broker, Once a Possible House Leader, Loses Primary.  (On the Times website the article’s print headline is now: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Defeats Joseph Crowley in Major Democratic House Upset.)  The opening paragraph reads:

Representative Joseph Crowley of New York, once seen as a possible successor to Nancy Pelosi as Democratic leader of the House, suffered a shocking primary defeat on Tuesday, the most significant loss for a Democratic incumbent in more than a decade, and one that will reverberate across the party and the country.

The article also lets you know the election was not exactly a squeaker:

The race was not close. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez had more than 57 percent of the vote [57.5 actually- a 15% double digit lead], with almost all precincts reporting.*

(* 15,897 to 11,761 when 98% of the districts reported.)

Ocasio-Cortez did it with people power, defeating the money.  Crowley outspent Ocasio-Cortez significantly, by perhaps more than 8 times, with a recent set of tallies from Politico for April through June 6th giving Crowley expenditures of $1.1 million versus $128,140 for Ocasio-Cortez.

I heard on the Jimmy Dore show after the election (June 28th- June 30th) that the New York Times never covered the campaign of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez before she won.  Could this be true?  I checked it out: It is basically true, plus the Times never ran a picture of her as candidate either.

How did Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez win the election if her campaign wasn’t being reported on by mainstream media and the paper of record, the New York Times, the principal newspaper for her hometown of New York City?  The Jimmy Dore Show offered the satirical suggestion the voters got into the voting booth and just made a lucky guess.

By contrast, The Jimmy Dore show proudly crowed that it covered Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as an insurgent candidate worth paying attention to a year ago.

Some things worth knowing about Ms. Ocasio-Cortez: She is frequently referred to as a "progressive," sometimes as a "grassroots progressive," to distinguish her from the faux-mantel progressives (or "fauxmanteau progessives"), corporate democrats dominating the Democratic party like NYC mayor Bill de Balsio or councilman Brad Lander (locally) who inoffensively give largely safe lip service to certain social ideas, but stow away any principled response when confronting money and establishment power (aligning with such power to sell off public assets like libraries).  Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, like Bernie Sanders the man she previously campaigned and organized for, refers to herself as a "Democratic Socialist."  She is for single-payer universal health care, government-funded higher education, the abolition of ICE (a post 9/11 agency founded in 2003), and she seeks justice for Puerto Rico now targeted in a brazen privatizing attempt to transfer the island from its people to wealthy profit seekers.  This means she is considerably to the left of the New York Times and the usual establishment interests that Democratic and Republican parties serve.     

As for verification of the assertion on the Jimmy Dore Show that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign was not covered by the Times before her win turned the world of mainstream media political coverage upside-down, if you go to the New York Times site and do a date restricted search to discover mentions of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign you find mentions of it in just five articles, and essentially no coverage that would tell you who she was or what she stood for as a candidate or indicating the strength and attraction of her campaign or what her win would signify.

Just five articles mentioning the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez before the election.

Hilariously, the New York Times has subsequently treated her win as so important that if you search its site without date restrictions you now get lost in a sea of more than 60 headlines (so far) virtually all published in just a few day's time.

If you search the Times now, you will get lost there are so many articles about Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, more than 60 mentioning her since her primary win.

Here, in date order, are the few words the Times offered about Ms. Ocasio-Cortez during her campaign to defeat Mr. Crowley in those five Times articles that mentioned her:

Stacey Abrams Didn’t Play It Safe. Neither Do These Female Candidates, by Susan Chira and Matt Flegenheimer, May 29, 2018.

The question went out late one night on a private message chain of insurgent female candidates for Congress: Do you really attack a fellow Democrat?

“I feel like I’ve been pulling punches,” wrote Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is challenging a longtime Democratic incumbent, Joe Crowley of New York, in a primary. “Do you ever get any pushback from voters, or those who don’t want ‘party infighting?’”

Within the hour, peers from Texas, Washington State and North Carolina had weighed in: Keep up the fight.

“We’re not trying to ask permission to get in the door,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old organizer on Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, said in an interview.

Opinion: Adem Bunkeddeko in the Ninth District, by The Editorial Board, June 14, 2018.

In the 14th Congressional District, which spans Queens and the Bronx, Representative Joseph Crowley is defending his seat against an insurgent campaign from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a former campaign organizer for Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Mr. Crowley, the Queens Democratic leader, has ambitions of succeeding Representative Nancy Pelosi as the House Democratic leader that could redound to the city’s benefit. But Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, 28, has won an impressive measure of support, casting herself as a grass-roots alternative to an incumbent with deep sway in local politics.

New York Today: Primary Races to Watch, By Jonathan Wolfe, June 19, 2018.

Democratic upstarts in the city. A group of incumbent Democrats in New York are facing primary challengers, many of whom are first-time candidates under the age of 35. Representative Joseph Crowley, who some see as possibly replacing Nancy Pelosi as the head of the House Democrats, is being challenged for the first time since 2004, by the progressive candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Representatives Carolyn Maloney (Manhattan’s East Side and parts of Queens), Eliot Engel (the Bronx), Yvette Clarke (central Brooklyn) and Gregory W. Meeks (southern Queens) are also facing insurgents within their party.

Opinion: If You Want to Be Speaker, Mr. Crowley, Don’t Take Voters for Granted, by The Editorial Board, June 19, 2018.

. . Indeed, the snubs should be galling not only to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Mr. Crowley’s constituents in New York’s 14th Congressional District, in Queens and the Bronx, but also to anyone who cares about the democratic process.

Mr. Crowley, 56, is a powerful congressman who leads the Queens County Democratic Party. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, 28, has presented him his first major primary challenge in years. Despite long odds, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a former Bernie Sanders campaign organizer, has garnered significant support, waging a high-energy campaign and positioning herself as a grass-roots alternative to Mr. Crowley.

The candidates have met once, in a Spectrum News NY1 debate last week at which both candidates held their own.

* * * *

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said on Twitter after the debate that in sending Ms. Palma, Mr. Crowley chose “a woman with slight resemblance to me” as his surrogate. Both Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Ms. Palma are Latina.

For Democrats Challenging Party Incumbents, Insurgency Has Its Limits, By Shane Goldmacher and Jeffery C. Mays, June 21, 2018.

For Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, challenging Representative Joseph Crowley has meant watching local Democratic officials bolt the other way from her at parades, wary of appearing too close to her. Some have agreed to meetings, but behind closed doors — no cellphones allowed.

Mr. Patel, 34, and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, 28, are among a group of energetic Democratic insurgents across the country, many of them young or female or people of color, who are seeking to knock off some of Congress’s most tenured Democrats.

* * * *

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign, in particular, has become a cause célèbre for some on the left who seem set to put a scare into Mr. Crowley, the head of the Queens Democratic Party, one of the last and most powerful political machines remaining in New York. MoveOn.org and Our Revolution, an outgrowth of the Sanders campaign, both endorsed her, and the news site The Intercept has generated a drumbeat of negative stories on Mr. Crowley.

Earlier this week, she showed up to debate Mr. Crowley, the potential future leader of House Democrats in Washington — only to discover that he was a no-show, a Latina surrogate sent in his place. (Mr. Crowley had debated her earlier this month.)

“We have a political culture of intimidation, of favoring, of patronage and of fear and that is no way for a community to be governed,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said.

* * *
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said there is “camaraderie” among congressional challengers, and that she’s spoken with Mr. Bunkeddeko and Mr. Patel to “share best practices in dismantling this calcified machine.”

By contrast to those paltry five articles before the election, in the few days since, the Times has run more than three score articles where mention of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez factors in.  There are pictures of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez galore and video to boot, a positive glut, surely enough to surfeit the most avid fans.  Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is not the main subject of each and every one of these articles, but she is a central subject of a very respectable number of them.  Since, along with its own by-lined stories,  the Times also runs stories by-lined by the Associated Press and Reuters this jump up in number is also a window into their coverage.

Sometimes the biggest news stories are what is not being covered in the mainstream press.  I guess that's one reason I am getting more and more of my news from sources like the Jimmy Dore Show.

Here, to conclude this article, are links to 62 articles in the Times in which Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has been mentioned since the Tuesday June 26th primary through today, Friday June 30th.  Enjoy perusing just the headlines.  They will give you a sense of what's covered.  I can't think who would dare to read all the articles themselves.  It's enough to make a media hound like Senator Chuck Schumer extremely jealous.  Enjoy:

Elections- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Celebrates Victory in the Bronx (Video) June 28, 2018.

New York - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: A 28-Year-Old Democratic Giant Slayer, By Vivian Wang, June 27, 2018.

Politics- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: I’m ‘Unapologetic About What I Believe’(Video), June 29, 2018.

Opinion: What Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Victory Means, by The Editorial Board, June 27, 2018.

Briefing- Supreme Court, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, World Cup: Your Wednesday Briefing, By Chris Stanford, June 27, 2018.

New York- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Emerges as a Political Star, by Andy Newman, Vivian Wang and Luis Ferré-Sadurní, June 27, 2018.

New York- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Defeats Joseph Crowley in Major Democratic House Upset, by Shane Goldmacher and Jonathan Martin, June 26, 2018.

New York- What Does Ocasio-Cortez’s Win Mean for Cynthia Nixon? By Jesse McKinley, June 27, 2018.

Opinion- The Lessons of a Stunning New York Primary, by Frank Bruni, June 27, 2018.

Letters- New York Primary Shocker, June 27, 2018.

Opinion- Primary Turmoil Visits the Democrats, by David Leonhardt, June 27, 2018.

New York- An Upset in the Making: Why Joe Crowley Never Saw Defeat Coming, by Shane Goldmacher, June 27, 2018.

New York- Ocasio-Cortez Toppled a Giant. Are These N.Y. Democrats Next?  By Shane Goldmacher, June 28, 2018.

Politics- Will a Shocker in New York Have a Ripple Effect in Massachusetts? By Katharine Q. Seelye and Astead W. Herndon, June 28, 2018.

New York/Big City- Lesson of the Blue Wave Primaries? We’re All Struggling Now, By Ginia Bellafante, June 28, 2018.

Politics- Top Democrat’s Defeat Throws Party Leadership Into Turmoil, by Jonathan Martin and Sheryl Gay Stolberg, June 27, 2018.

Politics- 4 Takeaways From Tuesday’s Primary Elections, by Alexander Burns, Jonathan Martin and Matt Flegenheimer, June 27, 2018.

Politics- Here Are the Biggest Stories in American Politics This Week, by Emily Cochrane,  June 29, 2018.

U.S.- Facing Cuomo, Nixon Looks to Ocasio-Cortez Win, by The Associated Press, June 28, 2018.

U.S.- Political Novice Ocasio-Cortez Scores for Progressives in NY, by The Associated Press, June 26, 2018.

U.S.-  Political Star Ocasio-Cortez Appears on TV's 'The View,' by The Associated Press, June 29, 2018.

U.S.-  Shock, Then Ambition: Ocasio-Cortez Hopes to Shake Up House, by The Associated Press, June 27, 2018.

Television/Best of Late Night- Ocasio-Cortez Tells Colbert: ‘We Changed Who Turns Out’, by Giovanni Russonello, June 29, 2018.

Politics- Democrat Joseph Crowley Loses Bid for 11th Term, by Reuters, June 27, 2018.

Arts- Guest Lineups for the Sunday News Shows, by The Associated Press, June 29, 2018.

Politics- Pelosi Doesn't See Party Shift to Left in Crowley Defeat, by The Associated Press, June 27, 2018.

Politics- Is This the Year Women Break the Rules and Win? By Kate Zernike, June 29, 2018.

Politics- Stunning Defeat Emboldens Left as Dems Eye New Identity, by The Associated Press, June 27, 2018.

Opinion- The Millennial Socialists Are Coming, by Michelle Goldberg, June 30, 2018.

Television/Best of Late Night- Seth Meyers Tries to Persuade Kennedy to Stay on Supreme Court, by Giovanni Russonello, June 28, 2018.

Politics- How ‘Abolish ICE’ Went From Social Media to Progressive Candidates’ Rallying Cry, by Sydney Ember and Astead W. Herndon, June 29, 2018.

Reader Center- Bulletin board- From New York’s Primary Upset to Polling Data, How The Times Is Covering the Elections, By The New York Times, June 28, 2018.

Politics- Democratic Heavyweight Loses in New York as Trump Picks Win, by The Associated Press, June 26, 2018.

Politics- Democrats Reading Tea Leaves After U.S. Congressman's Upset, by Reuters, June 27, 2018.

Politics- Trump Celebrates Victories for 3 Endorsed Candidates, by The Associated Press, June 27, 2018.

Politics- High-Ranking House Democrat Dealt Surprise Defeat at Polls, by Reuters, June 26, 2018.

Politics- The Latest: In Oklahoma, Republicans Ousted Over Teacher Pay, by The Associated Press, June 26, 2018.

Briefing- News Quiz: Test Your Knowledge of the Week’s Headlines, by Chris Stanford and Anna Schavverien, June 29, 2018.   

U.S.- 10 Things to Know for Today, by The Associated Press, June 27, 2018.

New York- Crowley’s Loss Heralds an ‘End of an Era’: Last of the Party Bosses, by J. David Goodman, June 28, 2018.

Politics- Primary Takeaways: A Liberal Newcomer Ousts Top Dem Leader, by The Associated Press, June 27, 2018.

Politics- Agents Seek to Dissolve ICE in Immigration Policy Backlash, By Ron Nixon, June 28, 2018.

Politics- Ben Jealous ‘Just Climbed K2’ in Maryland Governor’s Race. Next Is Everest. By Daniel Victor, June 27, 2018.

Politics- Hundreds Arrested in DC Protesting Trump Immigration Policy, by The Associated Press, June 28, 2018.

Politics- Trump's on a Hot Streak: Court Rulings, Vacancy, Summit Plan, by The Associated Press, June 29, 2018.

New York- New York Today: Who Won the Primaries, by Jonathan Wolfe, June 27, 2018.

New York- New York Today: Where the Corpse Flowers Bloom, by Jonathan Wolfe, June 28, 2018.

Briefing- Asia and Australia Edition/China, South Korea, Najib Razak: Your Thursday Briefing, by Inyoung Kang, June 27, 2018.

New York- Dan Donovan, Aided by Trump, Holds Off Michael Grimm in G.O.P. Primary, by Shane Goldmacher, June 26, 2018.

Briefing- Maryland, Supreme Court, Russia: Your Thursday Evening Briefing, by Joumana Khatib and Marcus Payadue, June 28, 2018.

Student Opinion- Summer Reading Contest, Week 3: What Interested You Most in The Times This Week? By The Learning Network, June 29, 2018.

U.S.- Trump Dubs Heitkamp a 'Liberal Democrat,' Urges Her Defeat, by The Associated Press, June 27, 2018.

Briefing- Supreme Court, Disney, Unions: Your Wednesday Evening Briefing, by Joumana Khatib and Marcus Payadue, June 27, 2018.

Briefing- Anthony Kennedy, Immigration, World Cup: Your Thursday Briefing, By Chris Stanford, June 28, 2018.

U.S.- All Over U.S., Local Officials Cancel Deals to Detain Immigrants, By Simon Romero, June 28, 2018.

U.S. Gender Letter: What Should Women Sound Like? By Jessica Bennett, June 29, 2018.

Briefing- Europe Edition- Supreme Court, Migration, Poland: Your Thursday Briefing, by Dan Levin and Matthew Sedacca, June 27, 2018.

Briefing- Supreme Court, Capital Gazette, ‘Sicario’: Your Friday Briefing, by Chris Stanford, June 29, 2018.

Politics- Trump Helps Boost Two Preferred Candidates While Progressive Democrats Gain, by Jonathan Martin, June 26, 2018.

New York- New York Today: Where to Cheer, or Cry, During the World Cup, by Jonathan Wolfe, June 29, 2018.

Politics- The Latest: ACLU Says Government Wrong to Detain Families, by The Associated Press, June 29, 2018.

Elections- New York Primary Election Results, by The New York Times, June 28, 2018.

Open Letter To New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan Regarding Non-disclosures By Ginia Bellafante and the New York Times In Connection With Article About Proposed Sale And Shrinkage of Brooklyn Heights Library

The following is an open letter I wrote to the New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan concerning an article for which I was interviewed as co-founder of Citizens Defending Libraries by that article's author Ginia Bellafante.

* * * *
To: Margaret Sullivan, Public Editor, New York Times
Public@nytimes.com

Dear Ms. Sullivan,

Subject: Non-disclosure of reporter's connection to significant aspect relevant to article about proposed sale and shrinkage of major Brooklyn Library, that private school will benefit very substantially behind the scenes.

I am writing to call to your attention to and ask for your evaluation as New York Times Public Editor of an article written by a New York Times reporter, Ginia Bellafante, with a slant that may not have been discernable to many New York Times readers, but should be very discernible to those who know the facts concerning the subject as well as I believe Ms. Bellafante did.  Ms. Bellafante's editor observes that the article reflects an "opinion" Ms. Bellafante's formed about a very important public issue, whether a major public asset should be sold for redevelopment, the Brooklyn Heights Library, the central destination library in downtown Brooklyn, proposed to be replaced by a luxury tower with a drastically shrunken library at its base.

The article is: Brooklyn Libraries, Development and Misdirected Fear, July 10, 2015

Ms. Bellafante left out of her article many facts, some might think oddly or preferentially, that would very likely have caused her readers to form an opinion, contrary to her own, and conclude that the proposed library sale and shrinkage is unwise.  Her omissions included leaving out the fact that, quite shocking to many, a private school, Saint Ann's, is benefitting to the tune of what is likely to be tens of millions of dollars if the library is sold and shrunk.  Behind the scenes the possibility of materializing this private benefit for the private school seems to be a significant factor in driving forward this public transaction with its attendant public losses.

More important, in terms of letting readers evaluate the objectivity with which Ms. Bellafante was presenting what she wrote, Ms. Bellafante neglected to disclose to them, something unknown to me when she was interviewing me for the article: that she is a parent with a child in that Saint Ann's school that stands to benefit from the transaction she was writing about.

In addition to Ms. Bellafante not disclosing this herself when she wrote the article, the New York Times thereafter chose not to publish a comment on her article (the article was one that was open for comment) that I wrote that would have filled in this omission.  My comment on the article, provided below, noted that Ms. Bellafante disclosed to me, as she was writing the article, that she already knew about how Saint Ann's, a private school, is getting a significant payday (in a currently undisclosed amount) if the proposed sale and shrinkage of the public's library proceeds. Plus my comment noted that Ms. Bellafante and I had discussed the issue of Saint Ann's lobbying for the sale and shrinkage of the library in the background.  I also noted that  Ms. Bellafante did NOT tell me during those discussions that she is a Saint Ann's parent.

The Times decision not to publish my comment was apparently made after my ultimately-not-to-be-published comment was forwarded to Ms. Bellafante's editor who, apparently after consultation with Ms Bellafante, contacted me to say that it was not being published and to explain her view as editor that these things were not of concern.  I do not concur with Ms Bellafante’s editor in this assessment and I am providing our email exchange about this below.

Unfortunately, the publishing of Ms. Bellafante’s article was very well timed to influence an important political vote by Brooklyn Community Board 2 about whether the transaction should proceed and was used as propaganda by those attempting to push the transaction forward.

It would probably be worthwhile to consider chronologically the following concerning Ms. Bellafante’s writing of the article.

On July 6, 2015, the Monday after the 4th of July weekend Ms. Bellafante showed up at a hastily scheduled meeting of the Brooklyn Community Board 2 Land Use Committee.   Because the meeting was atypically being set up ad hoc at the very last minute with notice not going out to the public until 8:55 PM, Thursday, June 30th (essentially for all practical purposes Friday morning of the 4th of July weekend) Citizens Defending Libraries of which I am a part and co-founder of, had a tough time notifying as many people as we could to get the word out that this meeting was to occur.

According to what Robert Perris, the District Manager for CB2 told CB2 members later (July 11, 2015) when distributing and touting Ms. Bellafante’s “observations,” Ms. Bellafante “apparently walked over from her Brooklyn Heights home to attend the community board's public hearing on the ULURP applications associated with the Brooklyn Public Library's plans for its Brooklyn Heights and Business and Career branches” to attend the meeting.

Attending the meeting Ms. Bellafante heard discussion by a CB2 Land use committee that was obviously flailing about helplessly with, for instance, a total lack of knowledge about how much they were actually shrinking the library.  The public was not allowed to speak before the Land Use Committee voted, but it would be hard to think that anyone attending would not have been greatly affected, taking expressed sentiments to heart, when, at the end of the meeting, a long line of community members got up and spoke absolutely unanimously and very eloquently (we should get all our video posted on this) inveighing against sale and shrinkage of the library. No member of the public attending the meeting spoke any words of approval for the scheme.

In news coverage of that night summarizing many of the comments I am quoted as follows:

"This is a very sad vote," said Michael D. D. White, co-founder of Citizens Defending Libraries, which has been fighting the sale. "You've declared open season on selling off of libraries, you've declared open season on the selling off of public assets in general. And you've set the precedent for selling them off at an extraordinarily low price."

See:  the Brooklyn Eagle:  CB2 committee approves sale of Brooklyn Heights Library, with caveats, By Mary Frost, July 7, 2015.  I said much the same thing on News 12 coverage which, with a few short minutes and few words managed to cover other essential points Ms. Bellafante neglected in her article.

Apparently, however, Ms. Bellafante's point of view was not, and perhaps could not be, swayed by the public sentiments expressed that night.  Ms. Bellafante’s editor email to me stated that Ms. Bellfante’s “opinion” that “the redevelopment of the Brooklyn Heights branch should go forward had already been formed” and, in fact, was formed before she learned that the Saint Ann’s school her child attends was benefitting.  We don’t know when Ms. Bellafante decided she would write her article, but it has come to our attention that Ms. Bellafante was informed that Saint Ann’s was benefitting at least by the evening of Monday, June 29, 2015. . .  which means that her “opinion” was already formed by that Monday.

Tuesday, July 7th, the day after the Land Use Committee meeting Ms. Bellafante attended, Ms Bellafante reached out to me leaving a message on Facebook at 3:42 PM.  See below:

Michael: I am a Brooklyn Heights resident and columnist at the NYT and I'm writing this week about some of the changes facing Brooklyn libraries (both at Cadman and Sunset Plaza).

I was at the Community Board meeting last night and noticed some folks holding up signs and assumed they were affiliated with Citizens Defending Libraries. I'd love to talk to you (and/or you and your wife, who I understand is also very involved in this issue) about some of your concerns. I live right on Willow so could meet for coffee in the AM if you have time or we could talk on the phone if that's easier.

Let me know. My email is  giniab[at]nytimes.com

Many thanks,
Ginia

Ms Bellafante finally reached me the following afternoon (Wednesday July 8th) when she called my cell phone wanting a call back “before 6:30 PM” because she was “on a deadline.”

I called her back and we talked extensively starting about 4:30 PM.  In multiple respects I was surprised by how much she told me she already knew about the library sales.  Although she was contacting me with a stated deadline that was imminent, Ms. Bellafnate’s preparation for her article with its pro-development message the article did not appear to have been be rushed into production. 

Her article, published in the Metropolitan Section, was posted on line Friday afternoon.

In collecting more information from me, Ms. Bellafante let me know that she was already very familiar with many facts she later left out of the article, including how Saint Ann's private school is benefitting behind the scenes if the public's library is sold and shrunk.  She was also aware of the linkage between the sale of the Donnell Library for an inexcusably low price and the virtual carbon-copy replication of that model with the proposed sale of the Brooklyn Heights Library: She said she knew that when David Offensend was at the NYPL overseeing the much criticized Donnell sale, his wife, Janet Offensend, went to the BPL where she was key in evolving the "real estate strategy" and concurrent decision to sell and shrink the Heights Library.

Nevertheless, there were a fair number of things I told her that she didn't know that I noted didn't show up in her article even when I think they were of significance.  For instance, that Bill de Blasio had stood on the steps of the 42nd Street Central Reference Library in July of 2013 calling for a halt to the sale and shrinkage of libraries, including this particular Brooklyn Heights Library,* but then not long after, while developer applications were pending was taking money from the development team his administration ultimately selected as he let the sale proceed through to the next steps preceding the public approval process that Ms. Bellafante was writing about.  At Ms. Bellfante's request I directed her to a video available on the Citizens Defending Libraries YouTube channel of de Blasio's July 2013 statements appearing beside us to opposing the library sales.

(* Mr. de Blasio (7/12/2013): "It's public land and public facilities and public value under threat. . . and once again we see, lurking right behind the curtain, real estate developers who are very anxious to get their hands on these valuable properties")

Instead of mentioning anything about de Blasio in connection with the above, Ms. Bellafante downplayed the likely legitimacy of suspicions about our top elected officials and the sacrifice public assets for real estate development by suggesting to her readers that such suspicions were a sort of reflexive hangover, an "aftermath of the Bloomberg era" (therefore safely past tense and dissociated from the de Blasio era?).

I was also able to inform Ms. Bellafante, because she did not know, that Scott Sherman, who had written a series of articles about proposed NYC library sales and shrinkages for The Nation, had a new book book just out, "Patience and Fortitude- Power, Real Estate, and the Fight to Save a Public Library," that included in it new revelations about just how extremely little the NYPL netted from the sale and shrinkage of the Donnell Library: Less than $33 million.  From that amount must still be subtracted annual rent for a temporary replacement Donnell that started at $850,000 after Donnell, still not reopened in any form, closed in spring of 2008 and also must be subtracted millions of dollars paid to high-priced professionals associated with making that transaction materialize.  That very low net price was for a 97,000 square foot library shrunk down to a largely underground and largely bookless library of just just 28,000 square feet, while the penthouse apartment in the 50-story luxury tower replacing this public building is on the market for $60 million and other apartments in the building are selling for prices in the neighborhood of what the NYPL netted.

Ms. Bellafante did not tell me that she had already formulated an opinion that the Heights Library should similarly be sold and shrunk, but a few odd things indicated she might already have some leanings about certain things . . .  

Ms. Bellafante dismissed with disinterest the inconsistencies of the Brooklyn Heights Association respecting its position on selling and shrinking the library because of the gap in time between when it advocated the library be enlarged and its switch to now advocate that it be shrunk.

The fact that the library was significantly enlarged and completely upgraded with appreciable public expense in 1993, making the building essentially 5 years newer than the adjacent Forest City Ratner One Pierrepont Plaza, Morgan Stanley building, was irrelevant to her.  That Morgan Stanley building is where Hillary Clinton has chosen to locate her National Campaign Headquarters.  “After all,” that (1993) was “twenty years” back at the time the BPL announced it wanted to sell the library Ms. Bellafante reasoned aloud sharing her thoughts.

The Friday afternoon Ms. Bellafante's article went up, I immediately started posting comments to the article to add to it facts and perspective that I felt the article lacked.  Processing of comments was slow with some taking five hours to appear.

Publication of Ms. Bellafante’s article this particular weekend was very well-timed to have an influence on a CB2 vote scheduled for the following Wednesday, July 15, 2015, as to whether the library should be sold and shrunk and Saturday, the afternoon following the article’s publication it was sent around to all the CB2 members as propaganda by the CB2 District Manager suggesting the relevance of Ms. Bellfante’s “observations” to the upcoming vote.  See below:

July 11, 2015 at 3:20:21 PM EDT.

"Ginia Bellafante, who writes the "Big City" column in the Metropolitan section of the New York Times, apparently walked over from her Brooklyn Heights home to attend the community board's public hearing on the ULURP applications associated with the Brooklyn Public Library's plans for its Brooklyn Heights and Business and Career branches.  The applications are on the agenda for this Wednesday's general meeting, to be held at 6:00 pm at St. Francis College.  I thought the members of Community Board 2 and its Land Use Committee might be interested in Ms. Bellafante's observations."- District Manager Robert Perris.

(For what it’s worth, almost as soon as Ms. Bellfante’s article was posted on Friday, 3:04 PM, Ashley Cotton, Senior Vice President and Chief of Staff of Forest City Ratner, another of the real estate parities involved in the proposed library sale and shrinkage tweeted Ms. Bellafante’s article embedding a “thank you.”)

On Sunday, July 12th when I learned in the afternoon that Ms. Bellafante was a Saint Ann’s parent I submitted the following comment to the Times article (I was still awaiting publication of a previous comment about digital books).  This is the comment the Times would not publish:

When I spoke with Ms. Bellafante there was a great deal of information she impressed me by telling me that she already knew,, most of which doesn't appear here.  For instance, the background connections explaining how this proposed sale is modeled on the Donnell sale debacle, conceived at the same time.

Ms. Bellafante also explained that she knew all about how Saint Ann's, a private school, is getting a significant payday from the sale and shrinkage of the public's library in a currently undisclosed amount.  We discussed the issue of Saint Ann's lobbying for the sale in the background.

What Ms. Bellafante did NOT tell me and I now understand to be true is that Ms. Bellafante is a Saint Ann's parent, something not disclosed in this article.

Here is what Ms. Bellafante's editor wrote back to me at the end of the next day confirming that Ms. Bellfante was a Saint Ann's parent together with reasoning about my comment that was not being published:

From: Virshup, Amy  
To: mddwhite  
Sent: Mon, Jul 13, 2015 4:39 pm
Subject: Your comment on Ginia Bellafante's column

Dear Mr. White,

I am Ginia Bellafante's editor at the Sunday Metropolitan section of the Times and your comment about Ms. Bellafante's recent column on proposed library redevelopments in Brooklyn was forwarded along to me. The comment was not posted on the site, as I'm sure you know.  But I didn't want to let the moment pass without getting back to you.

I spoke to Ms. Bellafante about any possible conflict of interest. She began following the library issue before she knew that any possible sale of air rights by St. Ann's could be part of the project. She had not heard that anyone in the school was lobbying for the redevelopment to go forward, until you and other opponents claimed to her this was the case. Her opinion of whether the redevelopment of the Brooklyn Heights branch should go forward had already been formed and was not influenced by this news, or by the fact that she has a child at St. Ann's.

As citizens of New York, we here at the Times often end up writing and editing about things that intersect with our own lives. There are cases in which we feel that a reporter or columnist is simply too close to an issue to write fairly about it. We don't think this is one of those cases.

Sincerely,
Amy Virshup

Here is what I wrote back:

Monday, July 20, 2015 9:21 pm

Dear Ms. Virshup,

Yes, thank you, I am aware that the Times did not publish my comment.

When I talked with Ginia she told me that she knew all about the Saint Ann's payday.  I was surprised by how much she knew about this and other things like the linkage between Donnnell and other library sales with the Offensends (from our shared Brooklyn Heights neighborhood*) in the background and somewhat surprised by how much she chose to leave out as too unimportant to specifically mention, and too unimportant apparently to weigh in the balance of her conclusions.

        * We also similarly talked about Mr. Gutman.

Talking about Saint Ann's, we talked about the PowerPoint presentation that Saint Ann's did for its faculty about the library sale.  We also discussed at length the issue of Saint Ann's lobbying for its private benefit behind the scenes to drive forward this transaction where the public incurs significant loss.  I don't know when Ms. Bellafante first became well informed about the Saint Ann's payday before talking to me, nor do I know when she formulated her opinions, but I firmly feel it was, as a matter of good journalistic practice, a matter for her to disclose to her readers.  Ostensibly, at least she was formulating her thoughts when seeking information from me, and perhaps she should still have been.  On the other hand you are suggesting she already had a fixed idea of the conclusions she intended to promulgate before contacting me.

Failing disclosure in her article, I think it would have been fairest to the public and Ms. Bellafante's readers to at least learn that Ms. Bellafante was a Saint Ann's parent via my comment when I offered it rather than blocking it. This would have been especially valuable to have done on a timely basis, because Ms. Bellafante's article was used as a propaganda piece sent out officially by the CB2 office for CB2 board member consideration in connection with their vote before the CB2 members voted.  It was very well timed and well written for that purpose.

I could quibble about other matters in the article that look like they reflected an agenda on Ms. Bellafante's part, but I suppose I will only add that Ms. Bellafante did not mention to me that she was was going to depict Citizens Defending Libraries as having a sort of a feud with Urban Librarians Unite.  I don't believe she mentioned Urban Librarians Unite at all, and she certainly didn't mention her intent to have them comment on Citizens Defending Libraries or offer any opportunities of balance in that regard.

As for the question of when a columnist is too close to an issue to write fairly about it there will be different opinions. I, myself, personally, believe it is often necessary to write about things intersecting closely with our own lives. .  although maybe this is less often the case at the Times where the staff is large.  The lack of disclosure is what is troubling.

As to whether these or other relationships affected Ms. Bellafante's judgement in these matters, some of her logic troubled me like quickly dismissing the oddness of so drastically shrinking a library we so recently expanded (effectively the library is five years newer than the adjacent Ratner building, One Pierrepont Plaza, where Hillary Clinton has located her national headquarters).  Right now I'll leave the question of whether Ms. Bellafante's judgement was affected to others to consider without stating my own conclusion.  It's something I believe you and the Times should still be thinking about.   As for the public, it  won't be able to evaluate the question for itself without disclosure.

MICHAEL D. D. WHITE
Citizens Defending Libraries 
Noticing New York
http://noticingnewyork.blogspot.com/
National Notice
http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/
W: (718) 834-6184
C: (917) 885-1478
mddwhite [at]aol.com

I did not get a response back.

One additional afterthought I’ve had is that, even if Ms. Bellafante formulated her apparently irrevocable opinion that the library should she sold before she formally knew that Saint Ann’s was getting a great deal of financial benefit in the background, she still formulated her opinion with that Saint Ann's sale being part of the milieu, the background and social environment of people around her, against which she formulated her thoughts.  Without being very careful it is not so easy to say that there was no consequent influence.

The purpose of this letter is not to point out where Ms. Bellafante and I may disagree in about conclusions that could be subjective, but pointing out some of these differences will help indicate instances where more wary and alerted readers might conclude that Ms. Bellafante's judgment was off.

Ms. Bellafante is entitled to a personal observation upon which she describes the library as "dilapidated," especially since she told me that she has visited the library with her son, but it is an assessment we don't share and I directed her to an extensively complete set of photographs including all the space not normally viewable by the public that I believe supports a different conclusion.  While it must be treated as Bellafante's own assessment it seems less accurate than an indication that she was looking to pass along promulgated talking points of the BPL.  Using sarcasm to belittle the idea that there is need for scrutiny because the BPL estimated costs of $9 million in necessary repairs for the library, $3.5 million for a partially out of commission air conditioning system (actually estimated by the BPL as higher than that) are likely inflated, Ms. Bellafante tossed off to her readers a disbelief that library administrators are interested in doing real estate deals, but the BPL's minutes show that when Linda Johnson arrived as BPL president she told her board that real estate deals were her top priority.

While Ms. Bellafante's quoting me about digital books is an accurate portion of our conversation about digital vs. phyical books it is a highly truncated one.  Yes, as recently covered by a WNYC "On The Media" segment and National Notice article, digital books and keeping physical books off site does mean libraries cease to have zones of privacy, but in saying that we are not against digital books I cited librarian John Palfrey's new "BiblioTech" book as calling for digital plus physical books (requiring more, not less, room), and I noted that people tend to prefer physical books (probably in part because they learn better with them- as covered in the Times) so that, despite the push of the BPL and NYPL toward digital books, circulation is way up with almost all of that circulation being physical books.  I also cited the just-out Washington Post article about how much more expensive digital books are and how with a push to digital rental models and increasingly consolidated content control digital books may mean that content winds up just vanishing from the libraries. . . .

. . . Instead, Ms. Bellefante's article uses was written to imply that the Brooklyn Heights Library is being shrunk based on "library science."

In conclusion, I believe that that there is substantial evidence that Ms. Bellafante approached her subject with bias and a fixed predetermination about what she would write that improperly fore-ran her collection and analysis of relevant facts and that, partly because that fixed predetermination persisted the way it did that Ms. Bellafante being a Saint Ann's parent, a school benefitting very significantly from this transaction, should have been disclosed in her article.  Similarly, I think the Times should have published rather than blocked my comment that would have provided an alternative, though less effective, disclosure of that relevant fact.  In fact, I see no reason why the Times did not publish my comment other than the original lack of disclosure might have been viewed as potentially embarrassing.

Had readers been informed by such disclosure there would have been cause to be more alert for the balance that I believe was missing from Ms.Bellafante's article.

Here, albeit with a few overlaps from what is cited above, are things Ms. Bellafante left out of her article:

    1.    The mistake of shrinking this library ( last enlarged with public expense and sacrifice Oct.1993) down to just  one-third size* can  never be corrected, nor can the “replacement” library, stuck in the bottom of a luxury residential tower, ever grow with the neighborhood, CBD, borough or city.  Though this shrinkage is to a preordained size, no replacement library has been designed and  no estimation at all has been done of how many books it should hold.

            (*  63,000 square feet to just 21,000 square feet.)

    2.    The BPL is selling a  sturdy,  readily adaptable library in good shape, together with its land and development rights worth over $100 million (probably $120 million or more) to the public in order to net next to nothing in a transaction that may even incur a  net cash loss.  Further, there is no assurance that the paltry sums, if any, gleaned from the sale,  all going to the city, would ever subsequently go to libraries.  Libraries, highly valued by the public, cost relatively little to fund, but this sale is apt to encourage further underfunding like this.

    3.    This sale would sacrifice one more public asset (an education-supporting one at that) to build yet another new, huge residential tower that would further burden the public infrastructure such as PS8, already at  140% capacity.

    4.    The gentrifying aspects of this project are unmistakable with a public asset democratically serving everyone equally being shut down, lower income patrons coming to the neighborhood  kicked out, and so-called “affordable” housing units built  “poor door” style at a far remove from Brooklyn’s burgeoning downtown and upper crust Brooklyn Heights.

    5.    The developer has  refused to say how much of a payday the private Saint Ann’s School is getting from the public’s sale and shrinkage of the library, because that’s a “ private” transaction, even though  it’s driving this  public one.  Shouldn’t Saint Ann’s be paying the BPL?  (It may likely get more from this sale than the BPL is getting.)

    6.    This sale sets the unfortunate precedent for serially underfunding and selling off other libraries (per the BPL strategic real estate plan) and other public assets (like  public housing) setting a template for how public assets can be picked off one by one.  This developer is making hundreds of millions of dollars: The incentives for other such deals will always be there.   If we can’t stop them at libraries . . .where can we stop them?

    7.    It’s improper that while the developer’s application for this project was pending Bill de Blasio was taking money sent to him by its development team,  in his words:  “lurking right behind the curtain . .  very anxious to get their hands on these valuable properties.”

Here are links I supplied Ms. Bellafante as research resources to supplement what I understood she had found:

    •    This Citizens Defending Libraries page with a handout we gave the CB2 Land Use Committee members (linking to other handouts including the memo about environmental issues).  It links backward to other valuable sources.  Monday, July 6, 2015,  Handout Number 1 For July 6, 2014 Brooklyn Community Board 2 Land Use Committee Meeting- Let's Get the Record Straight! Concerns Re Proposed Library Sale+Shrinkage To be Voted On 

   •    This is the Citizens Defending Libraries YouTube 12-minute interview with the 2-minute de Blasio clip right after the introduction.  BK Indie Media Interviews CDL On Library Selloff Schemes

    •    This is the product of the Citizens Defending Libraries forums we've had on the subject of selling off and privatizing public assets in general.  Our Public Assets Under Attack- A Calamity of the Commons Unfolding That We Must Act Collectively Against- How best To Express It? 

   •    This presentation of the tour photos showing the library to be in very good shape with lots of readily usable space.   In A Closed Library, A Tour of Much The Public Doesn't Get To See- Don't Let Them Close This Library, The Brooklyn Heights Library On Cadman Plaza West, Corner of Tillary & Clinton

    •    This is Citizens Defending Libraries statement of principles posted in connection with the Sunset Park library proposal.  Monday, November 3, 2014,  Proposed Statement of Principles Concerning Any Possible Redevelopment of Library-- Sunset Park Branch.

    •    Reference to recent Noticing New York articles I wrote about the libraries from July and June.

Sincerely,

MICHAEL D. D. WHITE
Citizens Defending Libraries 
Noticing New York
http://noticingnewyork.blogspot.com/
National Notice
http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/
W: (718) 834-6184
C: (917) 885-1478
mddwhite [at]aol.com

Saving Schools and Libraries by Giving Up the Land They Sit On? - Letter To The New York Times Editor (From Citizens Defending Libraries)

Delivering a hard copy of Citizens Defending Libraries letter to the editor, in addition to a previously emailed copy, for extra good measure did not work to get that letter published in the New York Times

This is about how news does, or does not, get out to the public in this city if the subject of a news story is the real estate industry.  In this case, the subject was a very big story about real estate and libraries.

Two Sunday nights ago the New York Times published an article confirming what most readers of New York already know: New York City libraries are being sold off to developers, implementing a new public policy.  The next day that story was on the front page of Monday’s print edition.  See: Saving Schools and Libraries by Giving Up the Land They Sit On, by Joseph Berger and Al Baker, March 17, 2013.

The one good thing about the article is that it clued people into the fact that (whether or not library officials were denying it) these sales were happening across the city. . .

. .  The article took almost a month to get written and get published.*  The fact that the practice was unfolding city-wide was something that reporter Joseph Berger didn’t know and that Citizens Defending Libraries informed him of when he met with me and CDL’s organizer in chief, Carolyn McIntyre (also my wife) nearly a month before its publication.  We also pointed out that, as was noted in the title of the Times article, what was going on with libraries was similar to what was going on with schools.  It’s all part of an across-the-board fire sale as Bloomberg city officials get ready to finish up Bloomberg’s third term.

(* I predicted in advance, and turned out to be correct, that the story, posing difficulty for the Times, would take a long time to come out and be converted to a multiple byline.)

Revelation of the city-wide nature of what was going was the main good thing about the article.  In virtually all other respects the article was simply a compilation of real estate industry talking points about why selling city libraries is supposedly a good thing.

Here is what the article did not include, expressed in a Citizens Defending Libraries letter to the Times editor from Carolyn McIntyre. The Times did not publish this letter.  Mind you, a letter to the New York Times editor cannot exceed 150 words so the unpublished letter boils down to 149 words its statement of what the Times article left out:

    * * * *

March 22, 2013

Letters to the Editor
The New York Times
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, New York 10018

Re:    Saving Schools and Libraries by Giving Up the Land They Sit On (March 17, 213)
   
To The Editor:

Your front page article (March 17th) on selling libraries describes the policy "increasingly . . used" in the city to sell libraries on land "developers crave."

The article doesn't say these sales, since 2008's Donnell closing, involve shrinking the system.  The Central Library Plan is a consolidating shrinkage, including effectively decommissioning 42nd Street's Central Reference Library.  Brooklyn Heights' library sale closely clones Donnell's shrinkage.   

Unreported is that Brooklyn Public Library's CEO admitted (Daily News) that money from the Brooklyn sales doesn't go to the libraries or that the BPL, not prioritizing public benefit, fixed upon selling properties without arranging for money to return.

Underfunding of libraries, the excuse to sell them, is Mayor Bloomberg's program.  Funding our libraries less than Detroit when libraries are one of the highest priorities of community boards and usage is way up?

Citizens Defending Libraries has a new petition (8,500+ signatures) protesting this unjust, shortsighted policy.

Sincerely


Carolyn E. McIntyre
Citizens Defending Libraries

    * * * *

If you presume that the Times article omitted all of the above despite the fact that Citizens Defending Libraries called all of these things to the reporter’s attention at the outset, you would be absolutely correct.  Furthermore, it was not just what the Times left out; it was also what the Times wrote that was inaccurate and misleading.

When we met with Mr. Berger I carefully explained that these real estate deals don’t ensure that they will be to the highest bidder or provide the best return for the public.  That’s because they propose to use a RFP “Request For Proposals” process (side-stepping a simple “request for bid” process) to enter into “public-private partnerships.”  Forest City Ratner, a firm library officials say they expect could be among those they will do business with in connection with the library Mr. Berger arrived to report about, is notorious for its history of and expertise in abusing developer-driven partnerships.  Nevertheless, without indicating that there might be any other point of view, the Times article flatly states in the opening paragraphs that properties will be offered  “to the best bidder.”  (Was some careful thought given when that sentence was structured to say “best” rather than “highest”?)

This assuring pronouncement from the Times was notwithstanding that I had explained to Mr. Berger that I used to run the legal department of the state finance authorities. I did not explain to him that I was a principal author of their procurement guidelines. Had I done so I doubt that it would have resulted in a difference in his copy.

Inclusion of what was significantly left out of the Times story would have turned the Times story virtually on its head since the story’s essential points were that the sell-offs of the libraries a.) could not be helped, and b.) were for the public’s benefit.  Neither is the case.

Getting word out about the Times omissions presented a daunting proposition.  Even though the library story was a front page story of intense local interest the Times did not open that article up to public comment from its readers.  Had the article been open for public comment Citizens Defending Libraries and other New Yorkers could have pointed out the many flaws in the article, its bias and the dismal underlying flaws of the policy that article was supporting.  Comments could also have corrected the failure of the Times to mention to the campaign Citizens Defending Libraries is waging against the new policy and its petition now approaching 9,000 signatures both online and hard copy.  (Here is a link to the petition: Save New York City Libraries From Bloomberg Developer Destruction.)

The Times has likely learned from past experience and comment pages that opened up the subject of the Donnell Library closing that comments critical of selling off libraries come fast and furious.

Under the circumstances, the only way to correct the "paper of record" was to get a letter to the editor published.   The unpublished letter to the editor that appears above had to be withheld from public view until right now.  It had to be withheld until it was known that the Times wouldn’t publish it because the Times Letters to The Editor policy states (emphasis supplied): “Letters to the editor should only be sent to The Times, and not to other publications. We do not publish open letters or third-party letters.”  (See: How to Submit a Letter to the Editor - The New York Times.)

Meanwhile, the uncorrected Times story was having what is described as “The Times Effect.” The story was suddenly deemed to be news.  As soon as the Times story ran a slew of other publications and media published the same story, often repeating it in very much the same terms as in the Times.  For instance, Joe Berger was interviewed on WNYC, where he said much the same thing written in the story: Libraries Eyed as Ripe for Development,  by WNYC Newsroom, Monday, March 18, 2013. Similarly, an unbylined article appeared that day in Business Journal: Can New York's libraries and public housing be saved by private developers? March 18, 2013.

The most recent problematic echo of the Times article occurred on today's Brian Lehrer show where a misinformed moderator substituting for Brian Lehrer at the very end of the segment  puts out as a `correction’ her misimpression that sale of the libraries is not about eliminating library real estate, telling the audience with treacherous authoritativeness that the libraries (as opposed to shrunken libraries) `are being put back.’  See: The Brian Lehrer Show: Funding Public Services Through Real Estate Development, Friday, March 29, 2013.

The most thoughtful article in the slew of articles appearing, one that intuited that something was wrong with the Times reporting and followed up with some independent investigation that cast doubt on the Times narrative appeared in The Observer: Is the Public Getting Swindled By the City’s Short-Sighted School and Library Sell-Offs? By Kim Velsey, March 18, 2013.  (“Is the city is making bad—or at least short-sighted—deals in exchange for a little cash right now? . . . when private, rather than public interest dictates the city’s real estate decisions, that’s a real cause for concern. .  The Brooklyn Public Library. . does not dispute that the value of the real estate is a huge factor in the decision. “ etc.)

The problem for The Observer in making its assessments is that it wasn’t working with any hint of the information Citizens Defending Libraries had supplied the Times, which could have helped sharpen its assessments still further.

While it wasn’t possible to comment on the Time library sell-off story directly, it was typically possible to comment on these echoing stories.  Which should come first: Writing a letter to the Times Editor, or commenting with speed to correct the echoing stories (birds in the hand) but taking care not to use the same language as, and thus disqualify, a letter to the Times editor?  Additionally, it was altogether a very busy week for libraries with several public meetings that needed to be attended, something I will be writing about in another piece.
   
Citizens Defending Libraries probably should have gotten its corrective letter into the Times more promptly: It got its letter in within five days and the Times prescribed period is to get letters in within seven.

But getting a letter to the editor published in the Times doesn’t mean that the letter will say what you want it to say instead of what the Times wants that letter to say.

Three letters opposing the library sell-offs appeared in the print edition of the New York Times Saturday published Saturday morning.  See: Letters - A Plan to Demolish Libraries to Save Them, March 22, 2013.

I repeat them in full below.  One of them, which I have set forth as the first below (it actually appeared last), was from Martha Rowen from our Citizens Defending Libraries team.  Her letter was edited by the Times.  I have included in bold and brackets what the Times edited out and didn’t print from her original letter.  The Times editor screening her letter also indicated to her that if she had been prompted to write her letter by virtue of a website they would be disinclined to print it:

    * * * *

To the Editor:

[Saving Schools and Libraries by Giving Up the Land They Sit On (March 17, 213), quotes a claim that “people don’t want to raise taxes” and characterizes the sale of our public property as an “intelligent investment”.   At a time when polling shows Americans consistently in favor of higher taxes on the rich, I question the premise and ask, “Who are the people who do not want to raise taxes?”]  Any plans to sell our public resources to private developers should be voted on by residents of New York City — stakeholders at least as important as developers.

I believe that with full disclosure of the facts and figures, including statistics on rising library use and the modest cost of consistent guaranteed funding, ordinary New Yorkers are quite capable of making intelligent decisions on issues that will profoundly affect them for generations to come.

MARTHA ROWEN
    Brooklyn, March 18, 2013

[The writer is a member of Citizens Defending Libraries.]*

(* NOTE: This edit made it impossible for Times readers to find out about either Citizens Defending Libraries or its petition.)

    * * * *

To the Editor:

The front-page picture of a Brooklyn public library building that may be torn down (“Saving Schools and Libraries by Giving Up the Land They Sit On,” March 18) brought me grief. My childhood and professional life were partly lived in that borough.

That a building so rich in its beauty, character and connection to the past is now on the chopping block to make money for apartment house developers is a shameful comment on the city. I have traveled to places worldwide that treasure their history and do all they can preserve it. It’s what gives a city and a nation its identity.

I’m hoping to see demonstrations imploring the city to let that Brooklyn library, and historic reminders like it, remain standing.

JEROME COOPERSMITH
Rockville Centre, N.Y., March 18, 2013

    * * * *

To the Editor:

It is the siren song of money, no matter the public interest and cost.

The Brooklyn Heights library may not be a New York City-designated landmark, but it is a landmark to our families. When our children enter this easily recognized building, they feel that they are entering a special place of learning, connecting with centuries of “great books” and their own history. In doing so, they start on a unique adventure, a lifelong journey.

In placing the library as a minor part of a high-rise building, more than the original library building is lost.

A part of us is lost.

BEVERLY MOSS SPATT
Brooklyn, March 19, 2013

The writer is a former chairwoman of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

As you see from all of the above, the Times with its editing out of facts from its articles, and even the editing of the Letters to the Editor opposing that edited article’s point of view, has tightly controlled the framing of the public’s dialogue about the disposal of these vastly valuable, precious public assets.

Why is it that the Times needed to edit from Martha Rowen’s letter her astute observation that, contrary to Times reporting, the public is actually interested in seeing the libraries properly funded, something that was also indicated in the unpublished Citizens Defending Libraries McIntyre letter?  Unfortunately, in only 150 words you can’t add that libraries are a pittance to fund in terms of the city’s overall budget or that their funding is typically one of the highest priorities of the city’s 59 community boards.

The choices the Times made with respect to what to include can be interesting. . .

. .  Meeting with Joseph Berger in February we referred him to the new Center For An Urban Future Report released in January about usage and funding of the libraries.  The Times article actually included a quote from David Giles, the research director of the Center, who authored that report, getting a blessing from Mr. Giles that “there was wisdom to the approach” of selling off the libraries.  But, in doing so the Times made no reference to the existence of the report itself or its principal conclusions, the main reasons we said it was important to refer to it: That library usage is way up (40% programmatically, 59% in terms of circulation), that the underfunding of libraries by the mayor is aberrant and unwise and that the annual budget dance in which New York City libraries wind up being underfunded is simply a “kabuki dance,” the kind of political theater that ought to be dispensed with.

We’ve talked and communicated with Mr. Giles.  His report and its principal conclusions were, no doubt, an unexpected upset for those intent on converting libraries into real estate inventory.  I expect the upset generated difficult discomfort.  Mr. Giles tells us he agrees with efforts of Citizens Defending Libraries to obtain the funding for libraries that they deserve.  He doesn’t agree with us on everything.  What he believes, and we don’t agree with him on, is that the significant people now in charge at the libraries, who are intent on selling them off while shrinking the system, are people who are earnestly looking for `creative solutions’ the primary purpose of which will be to benefit the libraries.

Once again: The Times has tightly controlled the framing of the public’s dialogue about the disposal of these vastly valuable, precious public assets.  Why is that and is that how it should be?  Could it be that real estate advertising is very important to the financially beleaguered Times?  I am sure that others will have explanations to offer although they may not be radically different. 

Citizens Defending Libraries has added a web page to its collected web page where all the responses to the Times article promoting the idea that libraries should be sold can be published to correct the record and balance the dialogue no matter what the Times would edit out.

Another “Times Effect”: The Times As Gatekeeper Of Populace’s Populous Debate. . Unpublished Noticing New York Comment On Beyonce’s Moral Choices

What’s most important in this world?  What the New York Times pays attention to or what our multitudinous citizenry invests its time and energy in scrutinizing?  Sometimes a Venn diagram would show those two things as substantially overlapping with the New York Times exercising a gatekeeper role to ensure it remains so as much as possible.

In a New York Times Sunday Review article last weekend Mark Bittman, food journalist and author and columnist for the Times, picked up reminiscently on what has been a repeated theme in past Noticing New York articles: Whether Beyoncé Knowles is behaving morally when she questionably associates with and puts her image and influence behind questionable things.  In this case Mr. Bittman's focus was $50 million that went into a Beyoncé Super Bowl Pepsi promotion, half of which was going directly to Beyoncé and her “creative projects.” Mr. Bittman's concern is that the consumption of sugary soda is a significant public health problem.  See: Why Do Stars Think It’s O.K. To Sell Soda?, January 5, 2013.

On Tuesday I covered and commented on Mr. Bittman’s Beyoncé article here in Noticing New York: January 8, 2013, Tsk, Tsk: More Criticism of Beyoncé’s Moral Choices In a New York Times Op-Ed Piece.

However newsworthy Beyoncé’s connection to sugary soda really is, the public who have participated in making Jay-Z and Beyoncé the world's richest celebrity couple definitely seem to care.  In my Noticing New York article I noted that Mr. Brittman’s column had generated voluminous reader comments (410 reader comments with still another hundred comments awaiting moderation before they show up) and wondered if the comment I submitted to his article would show up.  At the time of this writing, the comments to the Bittman article published by the Times site moderators are up to 425 with comments having now been published.  In answer to my wondering: My comment has not been published.

Although in one case it is close, to date, the number of published comments on the Bittman Beyoncé column exceed, in some cases substantially, the number of comments on any of the other articles in the Sunday Review set up to take comments.  Here are the number of comments published on other pieces appearing in the January 5th Sunday Review (commenting for most of them are now closed).  Collectively, they do evidence that the Times comment sections provide an active and important forum for public comment.

    •    Can Social Media Sell Soap?, (appearing on the front page of the Sunday Review) by Stephen Baker: . . . 90 Comments

    •    The Surreal World: Capitol Hill (appearing on the front page of the Sunday Review) by Maureen Dowd:. . . . 287 Comments

    •    The Myth of Universal Love, by Stephen T. Asthma. . . . 325 Comments

    •    How to Choose a College, by Frank Bruni. . .183 Comments

    •    The Blessings of Atheism, by Susan Jacoby. . . 297 Comments

    •    Diary of a Creep, by Rend Smith. . . 423 Comments

    •    Dying for Freedom (about Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation), by Jim Downs. . . 323 comments

    •    Rapturous Research (about the exhilaration of authors when exhaustively researching an historical topic), by Sean Pidgeon . . . 153 Comments

    •    More Risk-Taking, Less Poll-Taking, by Thomas L. Friedman. .   264 comments

    •    Boehner, American Hero, by Ross Douthat. . .315 Comments

    •    The Public Editor: When Reporters Get Personal, by Margaret Sullivan. . .47 Comments

The New York Times published comments to Mr. Brittman’s Beyoncé morality story in three categories: “All,” “Reader Picks” and “NYT Picks.”  The additional fifteen comments published by the Times since I wrote on Tuesday appear as “Reader Picks” or “NYT Picks.”

For an idea of the additional comments the Times published while not publishing my comment here are the lead-in sentences of the last fifteen comments (they are largely reiterative of the 410 comments that went before):

    1.    Soda and diet soda are great items for celebrities to endorse, especially at the superbowl, where many ads (and parties) are focused on alcohol.. . .

    2.    Yes, if you isolate seeds from 200 apples and crush them (not swallow them) and eat them you will die of cyanide poisoning. But a few seeds will do nothing, . . .

    3.    Well Soda is American; an American thing to do: drink soda. . .

    4.    Once again Mark Bittman found food Jesus and now like a true fanatic he thinks we all have to convert.. .

    5.    Why don't they advertise the sugar free diet versions of these drinks? . .

    6.    How much money does Beyonce need? Seems like she and other celebrities take anything that comes their way without any thought to. . .

    7.    Doesn't anyone have any responsibility for their own actions anymore? One soda is fine. . .

    8.    Great article. Fit Fathers has been saying the same thing. Stars are hypocritical by. .

    9.    Get real. Soda, bacon, candy, beef, etc has been with us long before obesity. . .

    10.    Thanks Mr. Bittman for being willing to ask why popular entertainment figures are willing to endorse this particular seemingly innocuous product that actually causes . . .

    11.    In light of last week's CDC report on the lack of correlation between longevity and body mass (at least for "moderate obesity,") . . .

    12.    Give me a break. Comparing soda to cigarettes is a stretch, the vast majority of consumers consume soda with no ill effects . . .

    13.    It is a little laughable to think that Beyonce could be ashamed to endorse junk food. Almost everyone eats a little junk food now and then . . .

    14.    Can't wait until these celebs start endorsing 5 Hour Energy and Red Bull.. . .

    15.    Somehow it's fitting that Beyonce works to fill bodies with empty soda calories...after all she fills . . . 

Here is my comment that the New York Times editors moderating comments declined to publish:

Am I going to be the first reader to mention in my comment black actor and activist Harry Belafonte’s observation that Jay-Z and Beyoncé, now privileged with wealth and influence, have “turned their back on social responsibility”?  Mr. Belafonte wasn’t talking about the scourge of sugary soda, albeit a legitimate health problem, he was talking about broader societal issues.

Also, will my comment be published here and will it be selected as a New York Times “pick” if I mention that Jay-Z and Beyoncé have also both shilled for the so-called “Barclays” arena (part of the eminent domain and subsidy abusing Atlantic Yards project) which: 1.) The Times itself, with a conflict of interest, has shilled for even in its news pages, and 2.) partners to promote Coca-Cola, Pepsi’s almost equally sugary rival?

See the following Noticing New York article: [I then included the link to Tuesday's Noticing New York: Tsk, Tsk: More Criticism of Beyoncé’s Moral Choices In a New York Times Op-Ed Piece]

My inclusion of a link in my comment was not the reason for its exclusion.  Other comments published include links.

As I have pointed out before, the documentary “Page One: Inside The New York Times” described what it identified as the “New York Times Effect,” mostly using the Times’ own staffers to describe it, which refers to the way the Times leads the way in establishing what is, or is not, news.  It may be that the Times not only has an effect in leading the way to establish what is on the agenda for consideration as news but also has an effect on after-flow of the ensuing public discussion of those issues.

The morality of promoting sugary soda will be discussed; it happens to be a concern that New York Mayor Bloomberg has personally championed.  The morality of bringing the Atlantic Yards mega-monopoly into existence, including the so-called “Barclays” arena, will not be part of the public discussion.  As it so happens the same mayor has indicated that he wants the issues surrounding Atlantic Yards and the arena forgotten: “No one will remember how long it took.” (And by implication the associated issues and problems with the mega-project), says the mayor.  Says his mega-project-supporting ally, the Brooklyn borough president: “no one will ever remember what the fight was about.”

Not by happenstance, the top ranks of the city’s power elite are thoroughly permeated by individuals quite happy to see the mega-project issues similarly vanish from the public consciousness.  And the Times, which has relationships with all of these individuals, including the subsidy collector/developer Forest City Ratner itself, accommodates, scrubbing its news stories, even retroactively, of any mention of the issues, see: Saturday, September 29, 2012, Report: How The Times Expunged Its Own First Draft Of History On “Barclays” Center Opening To Replace It With The Pro-Ratner Narrative It Favors and Monday, October 1, 2012, New York Times Ghost Article: The Searchable Remnants On The Web Of Banished (Anti-Ratner/Anti-Jay-Z?) “Barclays” Center Opening Article.

Before I started writing Noticing New York I submitted prospective pieces to the Times that were not published.  If I ever were published in the Times I am sure that what appeared there would receive a greater readership than what I publish in Noticing New York.  That would have its advantages, but the advantage of a blog like Noticing New York is that when the Times does not publish what I write it can readily be published here instead, hopefully providing some balance.

If you have a reasonable comment on the Times Beyoncé article that the Times moderators won’t publish, I am happy to publish it here in Noticing New York.

Meanwhile, I have tried submitting the following new comment on the Bittman column to the Times:

I previously submitted a comment on this article that did not survive moderation to get published here.  It related Mr. Bittman's observations to the similar way that Jay-Z and Beyoncé have promoted the “Barclays” arena and the Atlantic Yards mega-project of which the arena is a part.  I notice that there is no mention in any of the comments published here to Beyoncé’s association with Atlantic Yards.  I am wondering whether any other of the comments that did not survive moderation to get published referred to Beyoncé’s and/or Jay-Z’s Atlantic Yards or “Barclays” activities.