Tuesday Links

Oder’s recap is, like much of his writing, highly selective and ultimately misleading.

I first met Oder in November 2005 when he introduced himself minutes before the start of a forum at Brooklyn Law School where Daniel Goldstein and I both appeared, asking if I minded having the event covered in his blog. Fine, I said.

What he and Goldstein posted after the forum varied sharply from what actually happened, so I asked the law school for a link to full footage of the actual event and asked Oder to post it, which he did.

A couple of times after that, Oder would send me very narrow questions, including on personal matters like when I moved to Brooklyn, then use my good-faith responses as a springboard for more long-winded attacks on me (and, of course, the Atlantic Yards project).

After the third or fourth go-round, I sent Oder a note suggesting that he tell me what he was planning to post and at least hear my response in advance (as taught in Journalism 101), mostly to spare his already over-burdened readers a lot of confusing back-and-forth.

Oder refused, which told me all I needed to know about his concern for free and fair debate. When his next narrow interrogatory arrived by email, I told Oder I had doubts about his integrity and would not be answering any more questions.

I also began critiquing him and other die-hard project opponents and alerting my readers to the various games and deceptive tactics they were using. I had written little or nothing about Atlantic Yards before the Goldstein-Oder November 2005 smear job, so those who’d like me to say less about the project should talk to the men who decided to pick a fight.

Keep in mind that Oder’s “challenge” is to not to debate the actual merits of the Atlantic Yards project, but to argue over the secondary (and irrelevant) question of which blog and mainstream outlets have done better or worse coverage of the project.

No one cares more about this question more than Oder, who has said publicly he hopes to turn his million-word march into a book.

He thus has a considerable financial incentive to defend and promote his posts, even though they include some gaping holes and glaring errors I have written about and occasionally ridiculed.

Unfortunately for Oder, his belated interest in debate comes after several years of taking cheap shots at me, Crain’s, the Times, and pretty much anybody – pollsters, judges, activists – who doesn’t follow his anti-project party line.

I intend to provide him the same opportunity for real-time rebuttal that he gave me: none. Surely he can take a bit of what he likes to dish out.

Errol Louis afraid to debate Norman Oder? Yea, right. Being a genuine journalist with a column in NYC’s most widely-read newspaper and a regular on NY1 and sometimes on CNN, I’m sure that Louis hasn’t time to waste with a man who can’t express a point in less than 10,000 words.

And before anyone calls Louis a coward, let me remind people that in the past several members of BUILD challenged AY opponents to a debate (via the Daily Heights blog) and the latter never accepted.