pelhamhall
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Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower
My problem with the Boston Courant is that they give a voice to the crazies, and that puts an air of legitimacy to their claims.
We all know people who wear tinfoil helmets, talk to themselves, scream at pigeons, etc. Sometimes we empathize, give them a dollar or other help. Sometimes they scare us and we cross to the other side of the street.
The Boston Courant (and South End News too) gives these people ink.
It gives them a forum to step up to the podium and howl their insanity at the public. The South End News is guilty of this too by allowing Ned Flaherty a forum to voice his completely wacky "UFP" angle in a last-ditch effort to reverse the approved Columbus Center project.
It would be nice to see either the Courant or SEN write an article that merely proclaimed "Copley Place Tower a Big Hit" with a brief, 10th paragraph throwaway line towards the end "of course, there were the usual suspects who oppose all development in Boston, and they had the same pet arguments, and this is to be expected. This 5% of the population attends all these meetings and opposes all these projects"
Instead, the focus of the article is always on that one tiny 5% slice of the population. The editors make the 5% the lead, and the whole basis of the article! "People Come Out to Oppose Copley Place Tower"
It's maddening. Giving a forum to somebody like Ned - somebody who is not an expert on urban pollution, but a neighbor whose view will be blocked - to belch out his analysis of Columbus Center and urban pollution is unbelievable.
You can say, "well, they let another op-ed run in support" but that's not the point. The support was from somebody well-versed in what they were talking about - real estate sales. The antagonistic view about urban pollution was written by a computer consultant whose views will be blocked!
Real estate companies have to wake up to this fact, and should simply stop supporting these papers with their ad dollars. I've never seen a wackier dynamic than a newspaper that relies so heavily on real estate advertising take such a systematic and complete approach at trashing developments with their uneven reporting.
My problem with the Boston Courant is that they give a voice to the crazies, and that puts an air of legitimacy to their claims.
We all know people who wear tinfoil helmets, talk to themselves, scream at pigeons, etc. Sometimes we empathize, give them a dollar or other help. Sometimes they scare us and we cross to the other side of the street.
The Boston Courant (and South End News too) gives these people ink.
It gives them a forum to step up to the podium and howl their insanity at the public. The South End News is guilty of this too by allowing Ned Flaherty a forum to voice his completely wacky "UFP" angle in a last-ditch effort to reverse the approved Columbus Center project.
It would be nice to see either the Courant or SEN write an article that merely proclaimed "Copley Place Tower a Big Hit" with a brief, 10th paragraph throwaway line towards the end "of course, there were the usual suspects who oppose all development in Boston, and they had the same pet arguments, and this is to be expected. This 5% of the population attends all these meetings and opposes all these projects"
Instead, the focus of the article is always on that one tiny 5% slice of the population. The editors make the 5% the lead, and the whole basis of the article! "People Come Out to Oppose Copley Place Tower"
It's maddening. Giving a forum to somebody like Ned - somebody who is not an expert on urban pollution, but a neighbor whose view will be blocked - to belch out his analysis of Columbus Center and urban pollution is unbelievable.
You can say, "well, they let another op-ed run in support" but that's not the point. The support was from somebody well-versed in what they were talking about - real estate sales. The antagonistic view about urban pollution was written by a computer consultant whose views will be blocked!
Real estate companies have to wake up to this fact, and should simply stop supporting these papers with their ad dollars. I've never seen a wackier dynamic than a newspaper that relies so heavily on real estate advertising take such a systematic and complete approach at trashing developments with their uneven reporting.
