mike_desare Posted May 1, 2008 Share Posted May 1, 2008 I can't believe the Vancouver Sun mislead the public about the Whitecaps' and Keerfoot's plans for condos. I am referring to the front page article the Vancouver Sun published yesterday: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=b41ec559-5952-4b55-a3d6-91097ec150d3 Now, Bob Lenarduzzi of the Whitecaps was forced to reply to that front page article, and make clear that the Vancouver Whitecaps and Keerfoot had no plans for condos: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=4d29c5ae-a4f7-4cbf-a129-8127df4a6ff3&k=62317 I encourage everybody here to send in their complaints to Patricia Graham, the Editor in Chief for the Vancovuer Sun, for misleading the public and publishing tabloid articles as front page material. Please send an e-mail to Patricia Graham at: pgraham@png.canwest.com Here is the e-mail that I sent to the Vancouver Sun: -------------------- Subject: Thank you for lying to the public regading Whitecap condo plansþ How could you allow Miro Cernetig to publish this as a front page story when Miro didn't even do his/her homework to verify the Whitecaps side of the story? I am referring to the front page story "Stadium plan includes condos": http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=b41ec559-5952-4b55-a3d6-91097ec150d3 Now Bob Lenarduzzi of the Whitecaps is forced to come out and make clear that the Vancouver Whitecaps had no plans for condos: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=4d29c5ae-a4f7-4cbf-a129-8127df4a6ff3&k=62317 The Vancouver Sun and Miro Cernetig owe the public and the Whitecaps an apology for publishing misleading information on the front page. I am dismayed by the standards of the Vancouver Sun - that is the quality of tabloid reporting without doing your research and verifying your sources. Next time, get the Whitecaps side of the story before publishing reports like that on the front page. Shame on the Vancouver Sun and shame on Miro Cernetig for the low standard of reporting. Sincerely, Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike_desare Posted May 1, 2008 Author Share Posted May 1, 2008 I got a reply from Miro Cernetig regarding my e-mail: ---------- Re: Thank you for lying to the public regading Whitecap condo plansþ From: Cernetig, Miro (VAN_Exchange) (MCernetig@png.canwest.com) Thanks for the note. I should tell you, though, it's a column, not a news story. Secondly, it's Mr. Kerfoot who owns the land next to the stadium and will dispose of it as he sees best. There is nothing wrong if there is development around the stadium in my mind. It's what cities are built on. I also think the stadium is a positive thing, and will help good development, though the railyards need to be protected for our industrial architecture.. That's what I wrote, I believe. The Vancouver Whitecaps are a sports team, not developers. Regards, Miro ---------- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted May 1, 2008 Share Posted May 1, 2008 Well that might be what Cernetig thinks and what he was attempting to convey bit it is definitely not how his column reads. He needs to reread his work more carefully it seems. Judging from the public reaction he is the only one who believes his column reflects the attitude he shows in his email response to you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
masster Posted May 1, 2008 Share Posted May 1, 2008 I don't understand why everyone is up in arms about condos. Who cares? What do they have to do with a stadium anyways? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnnie Monster Posted May 1, 2008 Share Posted May 1, 2008 As a former reporter, this really burns my ass. 1. Regardless of whether it was a column or not, it was FRONT PAGE. The average reader will almost certainly interpret this is as "news." 2. When a paper bungles things up this bad, it's common courtesy to give the correction the same placement as the offending article. I believe Lenarduzzi's response was section B. Bad form, Sun! 3. The kicker in all of this is that Cernetig didn't cite a *single source* for the condo rumours. This reeks of the same lazy journalism we saw when the Vancouver Scourier - aka "the Toxic Stadium Weekly" - went on the attack against the Southsiders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted May 1, 2008 Share Posted May 1, 2008 Same thing can be said about this crapp on the front page today that the Dome may stay for the 2010 Olympics. There's been NO FINAL DECISION. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tintin Posted May 2, 2008 Share Posted May 2, 2008 Johnnie, what did the courier say about the Southsiders? Anyway, this really boils my bum. It reminds me of how football is presented by the mainstream media in general, particularly television. People can say anything they want against soccer (That pencil-necked Squirrel Barnes, the pipsqueak on the CBC evening news, that fat oaf and the lips guy on TSN). Those and others can get away with saying whatever they want about footie, even though they're supposedly reporting the sports news. After finishing 25 minutes of baseball highlights, they'll make some stupid comment about a 1 - 0 soccer game and "how boring that must have been!" or something. Doesn't pitching a "perfect game" in baseball mean absolutely nothing happens? Well, there's excitement. Sorry, I'm ranting, but that article (which I read in Safeway because I refused to give The Sun any of my money at that point) really got me angry. I agree, what he said in his email to you is nothing at all like what I got from his article. He's a liar, full stop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest speedmonk42 Posted May 2, 2008 Share Posted May 2, 2008 quote:Originally posted by masster I don't understand why everyone is up in arms about condos. Who cares? What do they have to do with a stadium anyways? It is a subtle and sophisticated way of attacking the project. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnnie Monster Posted May 2, 2008 Share Posted May 2, 2008 quote:Originally posted by Tintin Johnnie, what did the courier say about the Southsiders? When Bruce "Toxic Armageddon" Clarkson - not to be confused with Don "Toxic Armageddon" Larson, who may or may not be the same guy - first reared his ugly head with bogus stories of hazmat incidents on the Waterfront railyards (completely fabricated), some of us on the Southsider board made some cheeky comments about him and some other NIMBYs who were part of an organized, concerted effort to spread misinformation about the stadium proposal. He ran crying to the Scourier (as I like to call it) with even taller tales about how the VPD were supposedly investigating the Southsiders for threatening his life (another lie), which prompted the paper to run a virtual play by play account of all the silly Internet postings we'd made, usernames and all. Two things were taken completely out of context and hyped by the reporters as evidence of hooliganism & harassment: 1. I found an address for someone named Clarkson in the Waterfront area and posted it on the site, questioning if this was possibly him. Given the fact he had mislead the media about bogus hazmat incidents which did not occur (as confirmed to me by VPD and Vancouver Fire), I felt that his claims about living in a building overseeing the railyards was also worth investigating. You have to remember, this is the guy who told the media he sits with binoculars all day recording serial numbers and hazard signs on railcars. His ability to actually observe the mysterious hazmat incidents he claimed to have seen from his balcony was absolutely relevant to his credibility as an eyewitness. It's a question the media simply wasn't asking. Anyway, subsequent to that post, someone else made a crack about leaving some "toxic waste" on his doorstep, which he played up to the Scourier as a threat against his life. The Scourier fell for it hook line and sinker. 2. Around the same time, the infamous "Wayne Brady sketch" appeared on the Dave Chapelle Show. A silly catch phrase from that sketch was mentioned on the Southsider board, and the NIMBYs said it was evidence that we planned to commit a violent act against women. COMPLETELY out of context. All in all, the Southside banter was indeed silly and immature, but hardly newsworthy by any stretch of the imagination. What made this all the more infuriating was that the Scourier did absolutely nothing to verify if the horsecrap the NIMBYS were spoon-feeding them had any merit. Had they taken five minutes to talk to VPD or Vancouver Fire, they would have found out just like I did that Clarkson was full of crap. Lazy journalism, plain and simple. I mean seriously - is it such a slow news day that Internet trash talk is a big story? If so, there should be Encyclopedia Brittanica-sized volumes written about me by now! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calgary Boomer Posted May 2, 2008 Share Posted May 2, 2008 I sent an e-mail to the editor in cheif and Miro, and he sent back an e-mail saying he supports the stadium project. Backpeddle...backpeddle... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest speedmonk42 Posted May 2, 2008 Share Posted May 2, 2008 The PR company that was hired to can this the first time around did a very bad job. The motivation is still there, perhaps they have hired better people now. I doubt we will find out who this time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest speedmonk42 Posted May 2, 2008 Share Posted May 2, 2008 Stop calling them NIMBYS Every time call them "the people who work on behalf of a developer who wants to turn the whole thing into Condos for maximum profit" No matter who they are or what their motivation, they are doing this directly or indirectly. Repeat that over and over. Of course they already guaranteed that attack doesn't carry as much weight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest speedmonk42 Posted May 2, 2008 Share Posted May 2, 2008 quote:Originally posted by Johnnie Monster When Don "Toxic Armageddon" Larson first reared his ugly head with bogus stories of hazmat incidents on the Waterfront railyards (completely fabricated), some of us on the Southsider board made some cheeky comments about him and some other NIMBYs who were part of an organized, concerted effort to spread misinformation about the stadium proposal. He ran crying to the Scourier (as I like to call it) with even taller tales about how the VPD were supposedly investigating the Southsiders for threatening his life (another lie), which prompted the paper to run a virtual play by play account of all the silly Internet postings we'd made, usernames and all. Two things were taken completely out of context and hyped by the reporters as evidence of hooliganism & harassment: 1. I found an address for someone named Larson in the Waterfront area and posted it on the site, questioning if this was possibly him. Given the fact he had mislead the media about bogus hazmat incidents which did not occur (as confirmed to me by VPD and Vancouver Fire), I felt that his claims about living in a building overseeing the railyards was also worth investigating. You have to remember, this is the guy who told the media he sits with binoculars all day recording serial numbers and hazard signs on railcars. His ability to actually observe the mysterious hazmat incidents he claimed to have seen from his balcony was absolutely relevant to his credibility as an eyewitness. It's a question the media simply wasn't asking. Anyway, subsequent to that post, someone else made a crack about leaving some "toxic waste" on his doorstep, which he played up to the Scourier as a threat against his life. The Scourier fell for it hook line and sinker. 2. Around the same time, the infamous "Wayne Brady sketch" appeared on the Dave Chapelle Show. A silly catch phrase from that sketch was mentioned on the Southsider board, and the NIMBYs said it was evidence that we planned to commit a violent act against women. COMPLETELY out of context. All in all, the Southside banter was indeed silly and immature, but hardly newsworthy by any stretch of the imagination. What made this all the more infuriating was that the Scourier did absolutely nothing to verify if the horsecrap the NIMBYS were spoon-feeding them had any merit. Had they taken five minutes to talk to VPD or Vancouver Fire, they would have found out just like I did that Larson was full of crap. Lazy journalism, plain and simple. I mean seriously - is it such a slow news day that Internet trash talk is a big story? If so, there should be Encyclopedia Brittanica-sized volumes written about me by now! It is not a slow news day. This is business, and you are fighting a PR company with savvy this time. They hired people to go to the city council meetings before, what makes you think they stopped now? Stop calling these people NIMBYS. NIMBYS don't get the kind of coverage you are talking about without a reason. How much print advertising do the condo developers buy a year? How much print advertising do the Whitecaps buy a year? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnnie Monster Posted May 2, 2008 Share Posted May 2, 2008 No, you're incorrect about this. In this instance we're talking about people like Don Larson, Ian MacRae, Caryn Duncan, Muggs Sigurdson... these are left wing NIMBY DTES activists, not developers. They took their gripes to the Scourier, which is one of the biggest socialist rags you're ever going to find in this province. It's therefore no surprise they got the coverage. Jon Stovell and his developer buddies didn't retain the Reputations Corp PR firm until later in the process, and there was no real alliance between the two groups until Reputations Corp manufactured the Gastown Neighbourhood Coalition (Stovell, his partners and his tenants) and the Gastown Residents Association (the NIMBYs). To say they "hired" people to attend council meetings may be a bit of a stretch. But they certainly went about "manipulating" vulnerable people in the area, that's for sure. Touch of irony: Reputations Corp was Sam Sullivan's PR firm in his mayoral campaign. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnnie Monster Posted May 2, 2008 Share Posted May 2, 2008 Further, you might be surprised to hear that Stovell eventually went on the record as having no beefs with the Caps building on the Port lands, and since then the developer-driven opposition to this project has essentially vanished. The only ones griping now are indeed what we can accurately describe as "NIMBYs." If there is any level of organization behind the opposition, it's coming from supporters of MP Libby Davies, and possibly from those of MLA Jenny Kwan. Both are NDP, no surprise there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted May 2, 2008 Share Posted May 2, 2008 I sense frustration and anger here. Mabey we need to get angry... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmcmurph Posted May 2, 2008 Share Posted May 2, 2008 quote:Originally posted by Bill I sense frustration and anger here. Mabey we need to get angry... Dr. Bill? [}] Well Phil was taken. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest speedmonk42 Posted May 3, 2008 Share Posted May 3, 2008 quote:Originally posted by Johnnie Monster Further, you might be surprised to hear that Stovell eventually went on the record as having no beefs with the Caps building on the Port lands, and since then the developer-driven opposition to this project has essentially vanished. The only ones griping now are indeed what we can accurately describe as "NIMBYs." If there is any level of organization behind the opposition, it's coming from supporters of MP Libby Davies, and possibly from those of MLA Jenny Kwan. Both are NDP, no surprise there. Well that is good to hear. I have not been around in Van for some time. It is reassuring to some degree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted May 10, 2008 Share Posted May 10, 2008 I heard Lenarduzzi on News 1130 last night talking about the possibility of moving into BC Place on a short term basis to get an MLS team. He sounded defeated. Did not sound encouraging Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted May 10, 2008 Share Posted May 10, 2008 Well, I agree that the Whitecaps need to implement a contingency plan soon or waive goodbye to an MLS franchise anytime soon. With the agonising lack of progress during the past five years and the absence of any high profile strong advocate for the project outside the Whitecaps organisation or the media I am not optimistic that the Waterfront Stadium project will ever come to fruition frankly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnnie Monster Posted May 10, 2008 Share Posted May 10, 2008 I heard the Duze on CKNW, and it didn't quite sound like defeat to me. He said that they are changing their tune re: BC Place as a temporary measure only because the powers that be are giving serious consideration to a retractable roof and interior refurbishment. He was adamant that it would be a temporary measure as they continued to push for the waterfront stadium. Snatching up one of the the final MLS expansion slots was the immediate priority. Prediction - Caps snag the expansion slot and move into BC Place. The Port balks at a land swap, and the city trades Main & Terminal lands for Kerfoot's waterfront instead. Southsiders end up drinking their wages away at the Ivanhoe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Boy Posted May 10, 2008 Share Posted May 10, 2008 quote:Originally posted by Johnnie Monster Prediction - Caps snag the expansion slot and move into BC Place. The Port balks at a land swap, and the city trades Main & Terminal lands for Kerfoot's waterfront instead. Southsiders end up drinking their wages away at the Ivanhoe. If the BC Place scenario happens, I have a feeling you will be right. If government (any level) wanted the stadium TFC would most likely be playing the Whitecaps in a league situation by now. The government doesn't have anything to lose by dragging it's feet (except public perception from a niche market). So it will. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
royalcity Posted May 10, 2008 Share Posted May 10, 2008 FOS has three responses so far from the mayoralty candidates. http://www.canadian-soccer.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=15317 False creek flats keeps coming up. What's the Ivanhoe like? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarnCherry Posted May 10, 2008 Share Posted May 10, 2008 quote:Originally posted by royalcity What's the Ivanhoe like? A craphole. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted May 10, 2008 Share Posted May 10, 2008 Pulling seats closer in to the field has been done before: case in point is Key Arena down in Seattle. In 1994 Key Arena underwent extensive interior renovations to bring the seats closer into to the basketball court area. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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