Carson gets one luxury apartment complex and a viable NFL stadium site, and it all goes to their heads. City councilmembers are ruffled that local paper the Daily Breeze (part of the LA News Group, which also owns the LA Daily News and the Pasadena Star-News) has printed several tales of crimes and accidents that have occurred in unincorporated areas near Carson, using the city as an identifying locale in the descriptions. They're so upset that the city council is now considering prohibiting Carson from subscribing to or advertising in the paper, says the LA Times.
The Carson City Council has delayed voting on two resolutions that would ban the city government from supporting the Daily Breeze through advertising or subscriptions unless it's required by law, and that would also encourage Carsonites to do the same. It's pretty drastic, but the Daily Breeze had its chance to make things right: prior to drafting up these potential new laws, city staffers and lawmakers wrote letters to the paper asking "that you balance your reporting with highlights on a lot of the positive projects and developments," as the city manager put it in his missive to the paper. The council vote on the subscription/ad stoppage was delayed this week, and the councilmember who sponsored the resolutions has said he's going to meet with the executive editor of the Daily Breeze.
Again, the whole problem is not that these stories didn't take place near Carson, it's that Carson was named as being close to the scenes of crimes or tragedies, when, the city claims, other adjacent 'hoods could have easily been used. "...[I]t's also factually correct to say it's unincorporated Torrance, which they do not. It's also factually correct to say it's the Harbor Gateway, which they do not. They choose to say it's near Carson. And that is not fair," says the sponsoring councilmember, who argues that Carson is becoming a "destination city." Apparently, their rep as such is still pretty fragile and can be crushed by news of just one deadly accident on the 405 that's incorrectly placed within Carson's borders.
The Daily Breeze, though, doesn't seem to be shaken by the threat of lost subscriptions and ad revenue. The executive editor notes that just last week his paper reported on "brewing political intrigue in the run-up to Carson's municipal elections, making the timing of Tuesday's draft resolution 'interesting.'"
· Carson lawmakers delay vote over boycotting local newspaper [LAT]
· Carson [Curbed LA]
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