Another letter to the editor of Princeton’s Town Topics, a newspaper that seems to have a pronounced allergy to fact-based reporting.

To the Editor:

A summary of the year’s events in the December 31 issue of Town Topics asserts: “The former Westminster Choir College campus is now under the aegis of the municipality, which purchased the Walnut Lane site in April, and is currently exploring design alternatives.” The same article later asserts: “In February, the municipality took another step toward purchasing the Westminster campus by hiring the Newark-based consultants Topology….The $42 million acquisition was finalized in April.”

Westminster Choir College, “absolutely acquired” through “condemnation,” not purchase

Westminster Choir College was not “purchased” by or from anyone. The municipality condemned the property under eminent domain, involuntarily taking it from its would-be owners. A forcible taking of property is not a purchase, and an involuntary cession of property is not a sale.  The $42 million involved were legal compensation for the seizure, not proceeds from a voluntary transaction.

There was in fact a protracted controversy over the propriety of condemning the choir college property and using eminent domain to seize it. No part of this controversy finds its way into Town Topics’s purported summary of the year’s events. The naive reader would have no sense that there was anything controversial about the acquisition, and Town Topics’s reporting leaves them none the wiser. The result is not journalism, but an unreliable mix of public relations and propaganda. Readers deserve better.

                   Irfan Khawaja