According to the New York Times, PrezBo & Co. have kicked off a drive to raise $4 billion in seven years. That’ll buy a whole lot of fruit and cheese platters, fo sho. And everyone’s favorite cosmonerd Prof. David Helfand gets some airtime defending the administration. Word up!
Meanwhile, over in the Magazine section, we find a fat piece on Manhattanville that resembles much of the Spec coverage of the last two years (and a certain other publication), plus quotes from a few more professors and big names. New York Times: scooped?
15 Comments
@Peoples Reporting news that is reported at other places isn’t plagiarism. If the Times had plagiarized the Spec, their article would have been badly written.
@yeah... you’re totally right. spec only employs bad writers. like the ones working at the washington post, newsweek, the wall street journal, etc.
and yes, I do work for spec.
@voyager like the dude said, shut up about all that shit. nobody is “ripping off” anybody.
@hm... Kaavya Viswanathan : Megan McCafferty :: New York Times : Spec?
@speaking of which the times ripped off the viswanathan scandal from the harvard crimson. campus papers get to issues on campus first. surprise?
@spec/bwog/cpr fan honestly, i think spec does a good job of staying objective–it’s harder to get substantial answers from administrators usually so I’m guessing it’s just a question of the final product: administration cares less to give real concrete answers to this question since it seems pretty clear they’re set to expand into Mville…
and it’s true that both B+W writers were also Spec writers, but hey, it’s nice to see B+W looking at Mville too.
@To Hell w/ the Demonstrators Rent control residents and all these other whiners about the Manhattanville expansion should shut it. Make room for Columbia! Choo choo baby! Choo choo! Keep plowing Prezbo!
@hi ttan. nice of you to drop by.
and bwog, what’s up with ‘comment too short!’ that’s playa hating.
@Who the hell is ttan? I’m just a concerned member of the Columbia community who will not let idle minds stand in the way of progress.
@sw hey shut up about all that shit.
you guys are missing the best part of the NYT article, bollinger’s only quote, which comes dramatically right at the end of the piece
“The New York City factor is worth billions in endowment,” he said. “You give me the names of the 10 best people in any field, and I know I can recruit 2 or 3 of them to Columbia.”
this challenge is exciting, coming as it does on the heels of bollinger’s famous 2005 wager, “you give me twenty kielbasas, and i will eat that shit in ten minutes i guarantee you”
@hahahahaha hahahahahahaha
@i'm glad that the expansion has been getting comparatively fair coverage recently, emphasizing the benefits it will bring to the city and world. I’ve found the fragmented spec coverage fairly biased in favor of the demonstrators and manhattanville residents who make nice puff piece human interest stories for the front page.
@er... Not to rehash Spec/Bwog tensions again, but didn’t Bwog’s article this month resemble much of the existing Spec coverage?
Anyway, the point is valid.
@Yeah Yes, except there’s sort of a hierarchy of writing quality, with Spec’s (necessarily) hastily written pieces lowest; then B&W’s more magazine-style reportage; and then the professional NYT magazine article, fluidly written (though B&W’s piece was fairly well-written), more focused on its NYC-wide significance, and, because of clout, able to get extended quotes from more prominent administrators.
@dude that’s because the b&w piece was written by one of the main manhattanville writers for spec… why didn’t they just re-run some of her old coverage? the piece didn’t say anything new…