Ratner-Financed Publication Includes Pro-Yards Articles With Incorrect Bylines
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Freelance journalist Nate Schweber said he was surprised on Saturday to see his byline on the front page of the Brooklyn Standard, a publication financed by the developer Forest City Ratner that seeks to portray its proposed Atlantic Yards project in a positive light.
Mr. Schweber said he did not write that story or another attributed to him on page 18.He said the two business profiles he did write were edited to portray another Ratner development, the MetroTech Center, as a thriving commercial hub.
“I’m just livid,” Mr. Schweber told The New York Sun yesterday, “having my name on the two stories I didn’t write for a publication I was led to believe was a newspaper, not a piece of propaganda.”
Last weekend, the Brooklyn Standard was distributed across Brooklyn and around the site where developer Bruce Ratner is seeking to build more than a dozen office buildings, a hotel, residential towers, and a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets.
The developer paid Manhattan Media, a company that publishes Manhattan community newspapers, to produce the Brooklyn Standard’s content. The first edition was published in June.
The president of Manhattan Media, Tom Allon, told the Sun the misattributed bylines were the result of a production error. He refused to answer further questions.
A spokesman for Forest City Ratner, Joseph DePlasco, said “We make it very clear in the publication that it’s a publication from Forest City Ratner, an effort to share information about Atlantic Yards.” He said if readers of the Brooklyn Standard did not know it is funded by Mr. Ratner, they need “an IQ test.”
Mr. Schweber, a stringer for the New York Times, worked full-time at Manhattan Media between October 2003 and March 2004 and has since worked for the company on a freelance basis. He said he had never seen the Brooklyn Standard and did not know it was backed by the developer.
“I took it on good faith, based on three years of a professional relationship with Manhattan Media, that it would be a community newspaper,” he said.
He sent a letter to Mr. Allon demanding a retraction and correction in the next issue.
