Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Seriously? Stylish NYT Page-One Election Wrap Only Quotes Brooklyn Web Developer, Designer, Cinematographer and Professor.

Somebody tell Joe Sexton, the NYT's Metro editor -- there's more to NYC than the concerns of the residents of Park Slope.

NYT reporters covering the mayoral election yesterday blanketed the city, but managed to turn up only a shamefully paltry cross-section of comments from local voters in two upscale Brooklyn neighborhoods.

On the heels of the last two Sunday Metropolitan Section cover stories -- both set in Park Slope -- the NYT has lately become bizarrely obsessed with upper-middle-class Brooklyn, to the exclusion of hundreds of other worthy NYC neighborhoods.

[UPDATE:  Turns out there's an easy explanation for the NYT's Park Slope obsession.  We've learned that it's the Metro editor Joe Sexton's lifelong home!]

The lead story included quotes only from the following NYC voters:

--Katherine Krase, a 34-year-old professor, in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

--Gerni Oster, no age or profession given, also from Park Slope, Brooklyn.

--Ken Ficara, a 40-year-old web developer, from Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.

--Stay Birnbaum, 37, a web producer, from Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.

--Paul Ranson, 56, a designer, from Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.

--Luke Geissbuhler, 39, a cnematographer from Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.

Seriously, NYT?

The story had two bylines -- the page-one story by Michael Barbaro and David W. Chen -- along with reporting credits to four more correspondents: Flora Fair, Joel Stonington, Matthew R. Warren and Karen Zraick. How many of those ventured outside of Brooklyn yesterday?

In a city as large and diverse as NYC -- and in an election that pitted a black Democrat against a white Republican -- it seems bizarre and inappropriate for the NYT's voter coverage to be limited to two gentrified Brooklyn neighborhoods.

We realize the metro coverage has been cut back, but come on, dudes -- NYC has five boroughs and millions of voters to choose from. Can't you work a little harder to find folks who aren't quite so similar to yourselves?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Forget "worthy" neighborhoods. What about just neighborhoods full of voters. If no one treks out to College Point (only a trek if you don't live anywhere near Queens ...) to talk to voters there, we'll keep getting this skewed bubble view of the universe.

Roberto said...

"NYC has five boroughs and millions of voters to choose from. Can't you work a little harder to find folks who aren't quite so similar to yourselves?"

Yes, please.

Anonymous said...

Is Bloomberg really a "white Republican"?

--CJ