New Newspaper Launched To Bash Bloomberg

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been buying his fair share of ads in local newspapers. But this past weekend, a new paper appeared in hip Brooklyn clothing stores and Lower Manhattan subway stations that the mayor probably will ignore all together.

Called �Fed Up New Yorkers,� the slender, six-page publication is stridently and unapologetically anti-Bloomberg. Inside, writers rip into the mayor for every conceivable slight. He is criticized for overriding term limits, slammed for pandering to LGBT interest groups, accused of wanting to turn all public schools into charter schools and portrayed as a despotic king who loathes democracy.

Neil Fabricant, a tenant activist and former legislative director at the New York Civil Liberties Union, is the brains behind the paper (also known as FUNY), as well as the website BloombergWatch.com. In publishing the paper, Fabricant said was trying to cut through the mayor�s multi-million dollar advertising campaign and remind New Yorkers why they were angry about the term limits vote.

�This is a watershed election in my view,� Fabricant wrote via e-mail from Amsterdam, where he is traveling. �Can a mega-billionaire thumb his nose at the people; claim that a crisis requires him to �serve� again because he is a financial wizard and is thus indispensable?�

Fabricant admits that his crusade against Bloomberg is half-political, half-personal. He clashed with the mayor several years ago over housing policies that would have affected thousands of rent stabilized tenants he represented. After the term limits vote, however, Fabricant saw that he and other Bloomberg critics needed a soapbox from which to shout. And for once, the Internet was not going to be enough.�

�I got the feeling that we would be preaching to the converted in an endless loop of self affirmation,� Fabricant wrote.

Print media, he said, would give them a presence that blogs could not achieve.

�Besides, many older voters don�t use the web,� he added.��

Others soon joined him in his cause. On the back page, Fabricant lists his allies in the �Fed Up New Yorkers Coalition,� including former Village Voice writer Nat Hentoff, former American Civil Liberties Union director Ira Glasser, civil rights activist Allen Roskoff, the New York League of Humane Voters and several other organizations.

Michael Dang, the paper�s 26-year-old editor, said 24,000 copies of the paper�s inaugural issue were distributed over last weekend. About 20,000 copies of the next issue are slated to be handed out next week.

Each issue costs between $6,000-$7,000, much of which comes from Fabricant�s own pocket. Donations are accepted but are not tax exempt, meaning contributors will be giving out of their own sense of civic duty, Fabricant said.

�I know that sounds precious,� he wrote, �but there it is.�

The cost of printing and distributing is offset slightly by advertisers like Norman Siegel, the civil rights attorney running for public advocate. Siegel bought a $2,000 ad in the first issue, sight unseen, and plans to advertise in the second issue as well. Siegel said he was attracted to the paper�s strong opposition to Bloomberg�s overturning of the term limits law.

�I think more view points, more newspapers, more debates, the better democracy will be,� Siegel said.

Council candidate Margaret Chin, running against Alan Gerson in Lower Manhattan, is advertising in the next issue, so Dang said they would be expanding distribution into Chinatown and Lower Manhattan. The Rev. Billy Talen, who is running for mayor on the Green Party line, also bought ad space.�

Even some incumbent Council members are beginning to take notice. Council Member Letitia James (D-Brooklyn) said she has fielded calls from constituents asking where they can get copies. A vocal opponent of the term limit vote, James said she is considering buying ad space herself in an upcoming issue.

�We need more things like this,� she said. �Un-bossed and un-bought newspapers.�

Read the whole story: City Hall

Comments

[NYC07]

If you want to read the paper here's a link to where you can download it :

http://queenscrap.blogspot.com/2009/08/its-finally-here.html