18 FEBRUARY 24 - MARCH 2, 2017 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP EDITORIAL A LOOK BACK DEFENDING THE FREE PRESS THAT DEFENDS YOU Whether it’s an international news organization or a community newspaper like ours, the free press plays an important role in the health of our democracy. Indeed, our democratic republic’s survival depends on a free press that can do its job independent of government and exempt from punishment for simply reporting the facts. This weekend, the president made a ridiculous and infl ammatory comment about the free press being, in his words, “the enemy of the American people.” Sadly, many of his true believers agree with that statement. Of all the things the president has said in his political life, this remark is perhaps the most dangerous, yet also the most inaccurate. There are institutional checks and balances within the branches of our government, but an independent, free press is a check and balance on the government itself. It speaks for those who lack a voice, exposes wrongdoing where it is o ignored, provides the public with facts that more powerful institutions would rather keep secret, and informs truths that those institutions would rather mold to their own liking. “In the nearly 300 years since the trial of John Peter Zenger set the precedent for a free and open press, journalists 14 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP • MARCH 6 - MARCH 12,editorial A LOOK BACK compiled by GO BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD have stared down jail time, and in some cases, given their lives, while fulfi lling their duty to inform the public,” New York Press Club President Steve Scott wrote to the president in a perfect rebuttal of his remarks this weekend. “We understand that you will not always agree with what is written or spoken about you. But the fact that you disagree with a story does not make it fake news. And it does not make the press the enemy.” Not everyone likes what they read in the papers or online, or see on television. The free press isn’t here to tell you what you want to hear, or to be a mouthpiece for government. The free press is here to tell you what you need to know about what’s going on in your world, your country, your state, your city, your community. A republic without a free press won’t be a republic for very long. Let’s keep that in mind the next time the president sends out another embarrassing tweet about an article he doesn’t like. HOMEREPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS Change to 2015 ▲ ▲ Gary Nilsen and Helen Klein (Estab. 1953) (USPS 248.800) 9733 FOURTH AVE. • BROOKLYN, NY 11209 Co-Publisher ... Victoria Schneps-Yunis Co-Publisher ... Joshua A. Schneps Editor in Chief ... Helen Klein Telephone 718-238-6600 Fax 718-238-6630 E-mail [email protected] Periodical postage paid at Brooklyn, N.Y. Published weekly by Brooklyn Media Group, Inc. Single copies, 50 cents. $35 per year by mail, $40 outside Brooklyn. On June 8, 1962, the Bay Ridge Home Reporter (founded 1953) and the Brooklyn Sunset News, a continuation of the Bay Ridge News (founded 1943) were merged into the HOME REPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS. Postmaster: Send Address Changes To: Home Reporter and Sunset News 9733 Fourth Ave., Brooklyn, N.Y. 11209 Entire contents copyright 2014 by Home Reporter and Sunset News All letters sent to the HOME REPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS should be brief and are subject to condensing. Writers should include a full address and home and office telephone numbers, where available, as well as affiliation, indicating special interest. Anonymous letters are not printed. Name withheld on request. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, AS WELL AS OP-ED PIECES IN NO WAY REFLECT THE PAPER’S POSITION. No such ad or any part thereof may be reproduced without prior permission of the HOME REPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS. The publishers will not be responsible for any error in advertising beyond the cost of the space occupied by the error. Errors must be reported to the HOME REPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS within five days of publication. Ad position cannot be guaranteed unless paid prior to publication. Brooklyn Media Group, Inc. assumes no liability for the content or reply to any ads. The advertiser assumes all liability for the content of and all replies. The advertiser agrees to hold the HOME REPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS and its employees harmless from all cost, expenses, liabilities, and damages resulting from or caused by the publication or recording placed by the advertiser or any reply to such advertisement. Photo by Gardiner Anderson And the award goes to… Bay Ridge, which has provided the backdrop for many movies and television shows over the years, from “Blue Bloods” and “Saturday Night Fever” to “Mad Men” and, in 2006, to “Then She Found Me,” starring Helen Hunt and Bette Midler, seen above in a September, 2006, Home Reporter photo taken on location on Shore Road at 77th Street. Midler performed at the most recent Oscars, singing “Wind Beneath My Wings” during the awards show’s In Memoriam segment. “Then She Found Me,” which also starred Matthew Broderick, was also shot inside a historic home on 88th Street. ADVICE FROM A BLACK GUY TO PRESIDENT TRUMP FOR BLACK HISTORY MONTH Like most of President Trump’s rollouts in his fi rst two weeks in o ce, his White House gathering of African Americans to salute Black History Month was a little rough to say the least! For starters, not knowing that the world’s best known abolitionist died in the 1800s was a laugher. Perhaps even worse, his gathering of Black ‘supporters’ for the press availability Each day, thousands of people depend on SUNY Downstate Medical Center for emergency medical care and vital health care services. But this state-operated public hospital has been in danger of being closed or privatized for more than two years. Hundreds of jobs have been lost, and numerous health care services have been cut or curtailed due to the hospital’s ill-prepared “Sustainability Plan.” Now, there is language in the 2014-15 proposed state budget that would open the door to as many as five corporations to operate SUNY’s public hospitals. United University Professions, the union that represents nearly 3,000 employees at SUNY Downstate, has been fighting to keep SUNY Downstate a fully operational staterun facility. However, UUP isn’t fighting the battle alone. The SUNY Downstate Coalition of Faith, Labor and Community Leaders has become an important ally. The coalition has staged a number of rallies and protests over the past 18 months to save health care services and jobs at SUNY Downstate and keep it a public facility. The latest such effort is a 48-hour interfaith fast. It will begin Sunday, March 9, at 3 p.m., in front of Downstate’s 470 Clarkson Avenue entrance. Interfaith leaders and members of the community will participate to show their strong support for this beacon in Brooklyn and call attention to the threats it faces. You can take part in the fast or find out more about it by calling 718-270-1519, or sending an email to [email protected]. We strongly urge you to join our campaign. Take part in the fast, or come out and show your support. Together, we can deliver a strong message that SUNY Downstate must remain a full-service, state-operated public hospital. The threats facing SUNY Downstate are real. The SUNY Board of Trustees has openly discussed the possibility of closing SUNY Downstate. There is also language in the Executive Budget, which would allow corporations to control SUNY’s public hospitals; one corporation affiliate with an academic medical institution or teaching hospital. SUNY Downstate has Brooklyn’s teaching hospital. Privatizing or closing SUNY Downstate as a way the state to save dollars is shortsighted and unnecessary. We believe the answer to Brooklyn’s health care shortcomings lies in the “Brooklyn Hospitals Safety Net Plan,” a UUP-backed initiative to stabilize and deliver health care throughout Brooklyn. This plan would preserve SUNY Downstate and several financially unstable hospitals in Brooklyn, including Interfaith Medical Center, Brookdale, Island College Hospital and Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center. You can see the proposal online http://www.brooklynhospitalplan.org. It calls for the creation of a network of satellite ambulatory care centers, and would be controlled by and with 14 other Brooklyn hospitals. Downstate would be the network’s hub, educating and supplying physicians and medical staff to the care centers and working with doctors at the other hospitals. It’s a simple, effective plan and, if given a chance, will work. New York has a responsibility to provide for the health care needs of its citizens. The Brooklyn Hospitals Safety Net Plan—our plan and the community’s plan—viable, workable option for long-term health care Brooklyn. That’s something that Brooklyn residents desperately need. Frederick E. Kowal is president of United University Professions, the union representing 35,000 faculty and professional staff at SUNY’s 29 state-operated campuses, including SUNY’s public teaching hospitals and health science centers in Brooklyn, Buffalo, Long Island and Syracuse. With the city deciding to move forward on most of the school co-locations approved late last year, as Mayor Bloomberg prepared to vacate City Hall, parents in southwest Brooklyn are not only disappointed but angry. While the Department of Education under Mayor de Blasio wisely opted to back out of a planned co-location of a new high school inside Gravesend’s John Dewey High School, the DOE decided to move ahead with two others: the co-location of a charter school inside Seth Low Intermediate School in Bensonhurst and another inside Joseph B. Cavallaro Intermediate School in Bath Beach. These – like others in the borough and the city – are both fiercely opposed by parents, educators, students and the local Community Education Councils, all of whom contend that the co-locations would steal necessary space from students already attending the schools, and those who will be going to them in the near future. While the city has said it only considers under-utilized schools for co-locations, area education advocates say that both Cavallaro and Seth Low are well utilized, and likely to become more crowded as students now in elementary school in both District 20 and District 21 move up to middle school. Indeed, District 20 is one of the most crowded school districts in the city, so much so that the city built a host of new schools for it in the past decade, with more being planned, meaning that public school students in both District 20 and District 21 are likely to feel the squeeze should they have to share space with students from a charter school. That strikes us as patently unfair. While some of the charter schools poised to open in September, 2014 may be worthy additions to the city’s educational offerings, their needs should not trump the needs of existing schools with existing students. And, indeed, when a charter school is put inside a public school, the process must involve the school communities at both educational institutions, and parents must also be involved. The city must go back to the drawing board and come up with alternative arrangements for the charter schools planned for Seth Low and Cavallaro as well as other schools where they are opposed.. The students who attend those schools deserve no less. guest op-ed Keep SUNY Downstate open and public BY FREDERICK E. KOWAL Entire contents copyright 2016 by Home Reporter and Sunset News Page 3 of the October 10, 1941 issue of the Spectator contains some striking contrasts with the present day. Most dramatic, probably, is the advertisement for the washing machine – the barrel-shaped Thor in the lower right portion of the page, which could be purchased for just $1 a week, along with the new Thor Gladiron ironing system. The prices for liquor also deserve a second glance – a quart of whiskey cost $1.98, and a gallon of California wine $1.29. And, for the sports-minded, there’s the ad for the Hotel St. George pool in Brooklyn Heights. Members could swim there for just 45 cents, most times. The news items show, however, that some things have not changed completely – one recounts the installation of o cers for the Archbishop John Hughes Council of the Knights of Columbus, an organization still thriving today, while the other reports on the Catholic War Veterans, another group still active today. GUEST OPED BY JULIAN PHILLIPS le a lot to be desired. Let’s forget about the fact that he had to be introduced to more than half of them—and who were these folk? The best known individual on hand was conservative political commentator Armstrong Williams, he himself not a household name in the African American community. Going back in time, I’ll call them Trump’s version of Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus—a rap star, comedian, football Hall of Famer (I love you Jim!), and the clown Ringmaster himself, Don King, all summoned to Trump Tower to presumably talk about the state of Black America. Really?! What about some politicians and community leaders who have devoted a lifetime to civil rights and substantive change? Rep. Elijah Cummings says he’s open to meeting with Trump. I can assume there must be others. Rest assured there are some black politicians that might not want that optic—but many will certainly meet him behind closed doors. Here’s the thing: Trump wants to make good on his campaign promises. How could the ‘messiah’—the reformer of all of America’s ills — not deliver, especially to his African Americans? Remember we are ‘his’ as he yelled out to that one polka dot in a sea of Whites during a campaign stop as “My African American.” The fact of the matter is, from building a wall to telling Blacks they have “nothing to lose” by voting for him, this president wants all the glory! He simply can’t help himself. So what should he do for Black History Month? Trump should invite to the White House Black America’s best movers and shakers from the business world, law enforcement, the political arena and grass roots community leaders and, yes, the Rev. Al Sharpton for a summit. Something good just might come out of it. Remember, Sir Donald wants to look good. He would have to wind up adopting some proposals thrown at him. At the very least, he might form a commission or something to that e ect to seem like he is actually committed to taking action. To bring it all home, here’s something those network TV executives should do to make it interesting: propose doing a town hall with Trump and Black leaders to be aired in prime time. Can you imagine how many folks would tune in! From the Alt Right to the Black Lives Matter movement, popcorn and chicken wings would be fl ying o the store shelves from folks waiting to plop in front of their fl at screens for such an event! In what would guarantee to be a lively discussion, folks would want to see who blinks fi rst! Again, maybe something good just might come out of it. Just some advice from a black guy. Julian Phillips is an Emmy Award-winning news anchor.
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