which is close to Hyde Park and North Riverfront. Its about as close to Granite City, Illinois as it is to Downtown, yet our St Louis journalists have "Close to Downtown" on the headline. If I was a downtown resident, I'd call up KMOV and complain.
I'd also question why reference to Downtown when the situation is closer to equally known areas like Central West End. They could have said, "near the Cathedral Basilica on Lindell. It would have been more correct than saying near downtown. The Partnership for Downtown St Louis should do something too. A loft tour won't address this problem. Since we're not downtown St Louis residents, we'll help by offering a special class called 'Geography For Dummies' specifically for members of the press. We'll cover city neighborhoods so that press members know something about what they're reporting on. Our class will be free.
They could buy a copy of the downtown neighborhoods map too. While downtown isn't the only neighborhood that gets erroneously connected to crimes happening elsewhere, it definately takes the prize for the most mistaken identity reports. To me this seems like it gives downtown St Louis a bad rap. We always hear public perception about downtown's lack of safety; in addition to events that really do happen, the false reporting of events as being in or close to downtown really should stop.
2 comments:
The downtown perception thing really gets me as well. I had a friend who worked at Panera HQ on Clayton Rd & Big Bend. She would always tell people she worked "downtown" even thought I remind her she was actually closer to Clayton. There was also a Pastor at a church in Town & Country who would describe their community outreaches near Cass and Jefferson as being downtown. I told him if he insisted on calling that area downtown then I could say his church was located in Peerless Park.
We'll give the pastor the geography class too :)
Post a Comment