Manhattanville from the outside

And journalistic nincompoopery from our “rivals” to the north.

A few things:

-Most obviously, this article has no Yale tie-in whatsover. Zapana does not quote a single Yale student or administrator, and there is no evidence that she attempted to interview any. She could have, y’know, talked to some Yale higher-ups in order to understand to potential ripple-effect of Columbia’s expansion plans–or, in plainer language, she should have made this article relevant to Yalies. It’s not. So what’s it doing here?

-Except wait a second, there is a Yale tie-in. A few graphs from the bottom:

“And in October, Yale will voluntarily contribute $600,000 to the cities of Orange and West Haven, the first of several gifts offered in lieu of property taxes as compensation for building the University’s new West Campus, which will provide new science facilities.”

Now I’m not the news editor of the YDN, but if I were I’d have two questions: firstly, how does Columbia’s expansion plan compare to Yale’s in terms of budget and logistics? And secondly, does one really have any impact on the other? Zapana didn’t seem interested enough in the first question to pursue it, and she assumes the answer to the second question is no. The reader, in the meanwhile, has no idea what motives lie behind this rather glaring de-contextualizing of Yale’s expansion plans–plans that I personally knew nothing about until I read her article.

-Zapana was able to interview 20 local business owners but could only communicate with Columbia administrators by email. While I understand the journalistic value of email correspondence, Columbia is more than happy to pitch Manhattanville to whoever is interested–and in this case, the lack of a face-t0-face interview reflects a lack of journalistic balance.

-In sum: this article slightly misrepresented Columbia’s expansion plans while slightly misrepresenting Yale’s. This was the result of sloppy journalism as opposed to straight-up premeditation, but as Bwog aptly pointed out, this isn’t the first time our Ivy League peers have taken on Manhattanville and failed It’s a reminder that the world outside Morningside Heights has a stake in all of this–expect more veiled moralizing as the standoff between activists and Low Library picks up steam.