The last actual event mentioned in the story (the "recent house party") took place almost three weeks ago, on July 6. The "recent" meeting of bloggers at Metro Joe's was a week before that (I was there). If Perkins did any follow-up interviews from those two events -- other than the obligatory phone call with the AFL-CIO's John Ryan -- it sure doesn't show in the story.
The two-week lapse between Perkins' note-taking and actual writing may explain why, in more than twenty column inches of atmosphere and "color", she was unable to quote two consecutive sentences from anyone but Ryan. (He got three really short ones.) And also why she failed to present a coherent account, in or out of quotes, of even one of the reasons people gave her for opposing the Steelyards Wal-Mart.
Like, for example, why people like me insist that Steelyard Commons is in line for a hefty public subsidy, contrary to what City Hall and her paper have been saying. Perkins writes:
There was talk about stalling the project because the Steelyard developer is getting federal tax credits through a program for development in low-income areas. Those credits, the bloggers reasoned, amount to a public subsidy, allowing them to push for a public hearing.The bloggers reasoned? Is there some imaginable way that $32 million in financing, subsidized with Federal tax credits arranged through the Port of Cleveland, would not "amount to a public subsidy"? More to the point, is there some imaginable good reason why a reporter, hearing citizens describe an alleged government subsidy of a supposedly unsubsidized project, would fail to call up the Port to ask: a) whether the citizens are correct; and b) if so, what Port officials have to say about it?
But if Perkins made that call, she's not telling. She's content to note that we bloggers were "excited". (I guess she could tell from the way we rubbed our pasty white hands together.) So who cares if we were right?
I have to admit, I really expected better from Perkins. Live and learn.
P.S. Twelve more days have passed, and the PD still has not written about the Secret Wal-Mart Subsidy... either the $32 million in New Markets Tax Credit financing itself, or the fact that it contradicts repeated claims that SYC is an unsubsidized project, or the bizarre attempt by Port officials to evade public scrutiny through the "private" Northeast Ohio Development Fund. Sorry, but I don't think the "excited bloggers" passage above changes anything. Still counting.