Mayor Gregor Robertson plans news conference after giving exclusive to preferred reporter
Tomorrow morning, reporters are going to drag their butts out to the corner of West 43rd Avenue and Alberta Street to hear Mayor Gregor Robertson speak about an affordable rental housing initiative.
When I saw the notification, I planned on attending because rental housing is something of great interest to our readers.
Then I picked up today's Globe and Mail and saw the entire story had already been covered by Frances Bula.
I admire Bula's work and I can understand why she would want the scoop.
But I'm troubled that the mayor's office decided to hand the information over to a journalist working for a newspaper owned by the richest man in Canada—and then expect me and everyone else to run halfway across town to pick up a few leftover crumbs tomorrow morning. Why not just issue a news release and save us all a bunch of time?
I'm hoping the media joins me in boycotting tomorrow's news conference. I'm going to protest by having coffee with a friend instead.
A news conference boycott would send a strong message to the mayor's office. Imagine if CBC, Global B.C., CTV B.C., Citytv, the Vancouver Sun, the Province, CKNW, News 1130, Roundhouse Radio, Ming Pao, Sing Tao, 24 Hours, Metro, Fairchild, the South Asian community papers, the Korean community papers, the Philippine community papers, the Source, the Afro News, Xtra!, Omni TV, the National Post, and the Vancouver Courier all took a pass, but that won't happen.
Here are the key points in today's Globe and Mail story:
1. The mayor wants developers to allocate 25 percent of units in new projects to be rented to people whose incomes are between $30,000 and $80,000.
2. This could be financed by providing these developers with more density.
If you want to read the mayor's quotes, here's the link.
Comments