Ethics Corner: Building Relationships with the 'NY Times'

By: Allan Wolper It was a no-win situation from the start. In June 2000, the New York Times Co. agreed to partner up in a real estate deal with Forest City Ratner Companies to build a 52-story tower near Times Square that would serve mostly as the Gray Lady's new headquarters. Three years later, the Times' news side began covering an emotional debate brewing in Brooklyn. That's where Forest City Ratner was proposing to build a $3.5-billion residential and office project on a 22-acre complex ? bordering a neighborhood of brownstones ? that would include a basketball arena to house the New Jersey Nets.

If that wasn't messy enough, the New York Times Co. Annual Commitment and Liability report notes the company is obligated to loan Forest City $119.5 million to finish the latter's share of the building if the real estate company can't come up with the money on its own.

It's obvious that the Times would want Forest City Ratner to make its Brooklyn project a financial success so that it won't have to ask the newspaper company to come up with the loan. It is just as important to the Times city desk that the reporters covering the Brooklyn project do not feel pressured to produce puff pieces to curry favor with their corporate cousins. Or hammer the Brooklyn development to show how independent they can be.

The key to this kind of conundrum is disclosure. "In our annual report and in stories and press releases we disclose our relationship with Forest City Ratner," said Toby Usnik, a New York Times Co. spokesman.

However, the disclosure isn't as complete as it should be. Even though every Times news story on the subject includes a line identifying Forest City Ratner and the Times Co. as co-developers of the Manhattan midtown tower, there are no references to the loan agreement.

But Brooklyn blogger Norman Oder, a news editor by day at Library Journal, a trade magazine, and an anti-Times blogger at night, rarely lets a day go by without posting a line about the loan.

No matter how hard Times reporters may try to be fair, either the corporate side of the company or Forest City Ratner seems to do something to undermine them.

When the newspaper's "Sunday City" section published a series of stories celebrating the 75th anniversary of The Empire State Building, Forest City Ratner purchased a full-page ad on the back of the of the section reminding readers of its connection to the Times. "See you in the skyline, Big Guy," read the small caption saluting the Empire State building, beneath a rendering of the Times Tower and over the logo of Forest City Ratner.

But the Ratner public relations machine self destructed last summer when it leaked a full-color illustration of its Brooklyn project to the Times ? resulting in a Page One story that alerted the rest of the city's dailies to the development's size.

Then there was the loosening of a gag order just for the Times. Forest City Ratner had people who sold their apartments to make way for the project sign a gag order forbidding them to discuss how much money they received. For two years, the Daily News and the New York Post had pleaded with Forest City Ratner for access to the residents and store owners who sold out their property to make way for the new basketball arena.

So the papers felt it was a lost cause ? until April 10, 2006, when the editors read a New York Times story on the same sellers. The article included comments from both opponents and supporters of the project, but the headline, "Forced To Move, Some Find Greener Grass," was everything the developer could hope for.

To his credit, Nicholas Confessore, the Times reporter who wrote the story, made it clear he got his exclusive because of his paper's relationship with the developer. "Forest City Ratner is the development partner in building a new Midtown headquarters of The New York Times Company," Confessore wrote. "For this article, the company agreed to waive contractual restrictions limiting what those who accepted buyouts could say."

Then there was the "For The Record" correction. On April 27, the Times admitted that it had "misstated" the location of the project "in sports articles on Feb. 9 and April 11, in the City section on Jan. 15, and in several articles in 2003, 2004 and 2005." The paper noted it long reported the project was in the booming business section of downtown Brooklyn when it actually was next to a residential neighborhood of smaller buildings and brownstones.

But two days later, Forest City Ratner hadn't corrected its Web site, which described the project as being in downtown Brooklyn. That's why it's so dangerous for a paper to go into business with corporations they are supposed to be monitoring.