Fundamentals of Interactive Journalism

Half a block from where I live, a huge gaping chasm sits quiet and dormant, its future uncertain, its status clouded by controversy.

It’s the railyard at the center of the proposed Atlantic Yards development, where Forest City Ratner plans to erect a stadium for the NBA’s Nets alongside a mini-city of high-rise towers. The project would add thousands of apartments and condos, along with office and retail space, to an already severely congested area of Brooklyn. As of now the plan still stands, but two weeks ago construction abruptly stopped.

Initially, Forest City Ratner told the Daily News that pending litigation had forced them to stop work. Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, a grassroots organization opposed to the project, disputed that claim. DDDB spokesman Daniel Goldstein alleged that financial problems must have played a role in the work stoppage, since the area under construction would not be affected by either of two unresolved lawsuits filed by DDDB.

Freddy's Bar at 6th Avenue and Dean Street, a popular gathering place for opponents of Atlantic Yards, on December 15, 2008.

One of the suits challenges the usage of eminent domain to evict residents, such as Goldstein and his wife, Shabnam Merchant, who live in the project’s footprint. The other seeks to overturn the state’s determination that parts of the surrounding neighborhood were “blighted,” one of the factors that set the stage for the project’s huge scope.

News reports in the last week, including this article in the Observer, have confirmed that financial difficulties may force the developer to postpone or even abandon the project regardless of the outcome of the lawsuits. Today the Daily News reported that architect Frank Gehry has laid off nearly every employee he had working on his designs for Atlantic Yards.

Earlier this week I interviewed Daniel Goldstein. Here’s what he had to say about the possibility of the project falling through:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Sunset Park, NY – With flu season here and January/February peak times just around the corner, health providers at Brooklyn’s Lutheran Medical Center and in hospitals and clinics throughout the city are trying to get both children and adults – including those over 65 years of age – to get their flu shot.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) named last week National Influenza Vaccination Week. Tuesday, December 9, was Children’s Vaccination Day. Thursday, December 11, was Senior’s Vaccination Day.

“[Parents and grandparents] may bring in a child for immunization, but they won’t for themselves,” said Norma Villanueva, M.D., M.P.H., the Network Chief of Child and Adolescent Health at Lutheran Medical Center.

Read the rest of the article here…

The historic house at 11-41 123rd St., known as the Schleicher Court Mansion, in College Point is empty these days.

Why that is exactly is a matter of dispute.

Residents, such as Rita Douglas, 51, a longtime resident of College Point, say it’s because the electrical system was so out of date, the Department of Buildings declared it a fire hazard.

(more…)

It’s 6 a.m. at the crack of dawn and people are just starting to trickle into southeast Brooklyn’s Kings Plaza Shopping Center. There were no massive stampedes and looping lines outside their doors like at other malls, Targets and Wal-Marts in the region, but for thousands of Black Friday shoppers here, the experience was similarly exhausting and, at times, disappointing.

From Labor Day through early December, armies of parents spread out across the city, combing the admissions offices of private schools and public talented and gifted programs. According to the Department of Education, more than 16,000 students applied to public gifted kindergarten and first grade programs alone last year. And the competition is surprisingly stiff, with less than one seat for every ten applicants last year. In recent years a demographic bulge of children born after 9/11, has meant that times are even tougher for would-be kindergarteners and the parents.

Monique Walker, a mother of two, who recently returned to the city has applied to eleven private schools for her son.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The competition, raft of tests, and the Byzantine application process amount to a trial by fire that leaves many parents overwhelmed.

For Serge Avery a public high school teacher and father of two young children, testing presented an additional problem. In testing his son he found himself doing something he wouldn’t otherwise agree with.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Despite how foreign this world can look to onlookers and its inhabitants, most parents express a desire to simply give their children a good education–though the process has some asking just where it ends.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

But many parents are concerned that having to go to such lengths for something as simple as a good education means that many children will be educationally left out in the cold.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

And while these parents spend an uncertain  application season getting their children into the best public and private schools to city has to offer, what is certain is that many more children will have to settle for less.

1975 South Bronx nativity (image from NYT.com)

Folk artist Joseph Sciorra constructed this unique nativity scene, set in the South Bronx, circa 1975.

My very first post on this blog was about photos of the Bronx during that time.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve spoken with a few people – a bar owner, an unemployed 30-something, a pastor – who are worrying about the near future of the city in this recession.

Maybe a look at this scene (click here for some details) is a good reminder of what the Bronx has overcome and what it will hopefully never have to face again.

Arts and Letters Daily had teaser for a New Yorker article that got my attention today: “Academic performance of kids in U.S. schools would be enhanced by getting rid of the worst 10% of teachers. How do you know who they are?” My response: academic performance of kids in U.S. schools would be enhanced by getting rid of the worst 10% of students. (more…)

As the debate whether Gov. David Paterson should appoint Caroline Kennedy as the next U.S. Senator heats up, many questions arise about her qualifications.

But to bluntly oversimplify her qualifications of philanthropy and law into one word, it would be her name.

As a Kennedy she would have the ability to raise money and awareness for the issues of New York State.

The fact that Kennedy has not had to pay her “political dues” does not really concern me.

The real questions I would like to know are not about her qualifications, but rather her intentions.

I want to know, why she has decided at this moment to enter politics, what her agenda would focus on as Senator, and how she plans on helping the economically depressed and bleak, upstate New York.
(more…)

Disclaimer: I feel sort of conflicted about posting this article. On one hand, it’s my cops, courts, crimes story, due today. I’m one blog short of my 13 required for Interactive. On the other hand, I worked hard on it and it’s a hilarious story. So if you can dig that, read on…

The fate of three men arrested and charged with the 2007 murder of rookie cop, Russell Timoshenko, may rest on a chicken bone. Four chicken bones, that is. Four chicken bones, some partially eaten pieces of Popeyes chicken, a biscuit, three beverages and the precise arrangement in which these items fell, when an early morning traffic stop turned deadly.

Three attorneys, each defending his own client, have not argued that their clients were elsewhere when bullets struck officer Timoshenko and his fellow rookie partner, Herman Yan who survived his wounds.  They have not argued that their clients were not in the stolen BMW X5 that was abandoned following the shooting.  They are not questioning whether a shooting took place, or whether the shooting that they agree did take place after their clients were pulled over in the early hours of July 9, resulted in the death of a New York City police officer. Instead, responding to evidence and testimony that connect each car seat with a very different role in the shooting, (the driver not shooting at all) they are battling the prosecution and each other for the least guilty seat in the car.

(more…)

Photo by Tracy Chimming

This add served up a desperately needed shot of caffeine on my way home one night, while I wearily tried to keep my eyes open for fear of missing my stop on the Q train. As I focused on the words my first instinct was a jolt of defensiveness. Dumber?  ”Great!” I thought.  ”I’m in Journalism school, heading home at 11p.m. and this add is trying to make my job even harder!”  Yes, I am aware of all the statistics that indicate that public trust in journalists is at an all time low. But really, I thought this was a below the belt jab, a marketing “upper cut.”

The Independent Film Channel launched this project, which they say reveals the truth behind the news and examines the current state of investigative journalism and how it affects our perceptions of the world around us.  A visit to the web site revelaed a host of episodes covering everything from supposed “news fixations and taboos” to the effects of the “pundit-driven” news culture. 

Launched on November 18, project affiliates include Arianna Huffington and Gideon Yago. My issue is, if you’re going to examine the state of the news then you should raise a question not make a statement. While there is value in analysis and accountability,  the add could have read, ” Is the news making you dumber?” It’s possible to rouse public awareness and curiosity without perpetuating negative perceptions.