An insult to our A word of pride, and thanks
intelligence
Contributing Writers: Azad Ali, Tangerine Clarke,
George Alleyne, Nelson King, Vinette K. Pryce, Bert
Wilkinson, Lloyd Kam Williams
GENERAL INFORMATION (718) 260-2500
Caribbean L 10 ife, April 12–18, 2019 BQ
Schneps Media
The New York Press Association,
a statewide group
whose members include
weekly media, hosted a conference
in Albany and our
company won 27 awards for
excellence.
This was a banner year
at the awards for Schneps
Media, which expanded last
year to become a powerhouse
with more than 70
publications. Our editors,
reporters, photographers
and designers took home
27 awards. Schneps Media
papers also scored the most
points of any New York Citybased
chain.
These achievements are a
great reflection of the hard
work by those involved in
this team who produce the
best local news coverage for
our readers. It’s a source of
pride for all of us to work
with such dedicated, excellent
journalists.
Within our family of
papers at The Queens Courier,
we’re especially grateful
for the first-place prize we
earned for Best Spot News
Coverage. Our reporters
earned this distinction for
their coverage of two stories
in particular: a stabbing and
lockdown at Benjamin Cardozo
High School in Bayside,
and a devastating, fivealarm
fire that destroyed a
number of Sunnyside businesses.
In preparing both stories,
we sought to deliver comprehensive
coverage of the
incidents and the aftermath
that couldn’t be found anywhere
else. We were on the
ground at both locations,
talking with those affected
and providing a real scope
of both situations.
Our Courier Life staff
took home two awards from
the Better Newspaper Contest.
Reporter Julianne
McShane earned a first place
prize for the Best news or
Feature Series for her series
on refugees who resettled in
Southern Brooklyn with the
help of the Arab-American
Family Support Center.
“This series did a great
job taking a national issue
and localizing it. It was
well-written and laid out
the struggles of refugees,
who all came from different
backgrounds,” the judge
wrote about McShane’s
work. “The way the families
are presented in the photos,
along with the sections at
the end of a few of the pieces
on how to donate and help
people in need, emphasizes
the humanity of those seeking
asylum, which is obviously
an important part of
telling these stories.”
Reporter Colin Mixson
secured a second place prize
for Coverage of the Environment.
Mixson was recognized
for two stories: one
about sick raccoons taking
to local streets following
distemper outbreak in
Prospect Park in December;
the other about bird lovers
calling for an end to fishing
in Prospect Park after a
great horned owl ensnared
by line in the meadow died
hours following its arrival at
a wildlife rescue last April.
“You have found truly
local stories affecting people
in your community that
relate to the environment,”
the judge wrote about Mixson’s
stories. “I ranked this
entry high not in small part
because of its entertaining
sytle of community focus.
Environmental issues don’t
always have to be the bigpicture
topics. Sometimes
they are a bird stuck in the
ice or sick raccoons plaguing
the community. Nicely
presented.”
None of this, of course,
would be possible without
your continued support. By
reading our stories online
and picking up our newspaper
every week, you help
advance the mission of keeping
local journalism strong,
viable and independent.
We want to especially
thank our online audience
who continue to make our
sites some of the leading
news sources online.
All of us at Schneps Media
want to thank our team for
their amazing efforts — and
all of you for your continued
loyalty and dedication.
Know that in the years to
come, we’ll continue doing
what we do best — quality
journalism.
By Robert Pozarycki,
Schneps Media
“This event is closed press.”
We can tell you from experience
in the newsroom that
we’ve seen this phrase all too
often on emails from Mayor
Bill de Blasio’s office since he
first took office in 2014.
Normally, this phrase is
applied to various events on
the mayor’s daily public schedule.
But of late, it’s become
something of a motto for the
de Blasio administration —
specifically when it comes to
public meetings about community
jail plans for Kew Gardens
and other neighborhoods
of New York City.
Last week, the mayor himself
attended a recent meeting
about the Kew Gardens jail
proposal — and of course,
that event was “closed press,”
too. Were it not for a recording
confidentially provided to
us from an attendee, we would
not have known what the
mayor told a Queens community
asked to bear the brunt of
a new jail.
In recent weeks, meetings of
a community advisory council
on the Kew Gardens jail
were also closed to the press,
despite the boisterous objections
of council members who
rightly believe that reporters’
attendance was necessary to
inform the public about the
matter.
When asked why the press
was being kept in the dark at
these meetings, city officials
offered the most asinine of
excuses: that the presence of
reporters would stymie a real
conversation about the Kew
Gardens jail, and prevent community
residents from saying
their piece about the subject.
To have a real conversation
on any important issue
requires a knowledge of information
about the issue — but
that’s difficult to achieve if
reporters are prevented from
gathering information about
the issue, and then telling the
public about it.
Moreover, it sends a terrible
message to the council members
and the public at large
— that they can say what they
want at a meeting, but they
cannot share their remarks
outside of that forum. It’s the
city’s way of controlling the
narrative, and skewing public
opinion about the project.
The press ban is both a
dangerous precedent and an
insult to the public’s intelligence.
When he first ran for mayor
in 2013, de Blasio pledged that
his administration would be
far more open than his predecessors.
We’re not sure what
his definition of “openness”
is, but it’s certainly nowhere
close to the actual Webster’s
dictionary definition: “the free
expression of one s true feelings
and opinions.”
It’s time for the public to
no longer allow the de Blasio
administration to insult
their intelligence by keeping
the press in the dark. Call
the Mayor’s Office at 212-788-
7585 and urge him to lift the
reporter ban on community
advisory council meetings on
the Kew Gardens jail plan.
OP-EDS
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EDITOR EMERITUS: Kenton Kirby
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From left Schneps Media representatives Ralph D’Onofrio, Cliff
Luster, Victoria Schneps-Yunis, Bob Brennan and Paul Schindler.
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