The myth of Matty’s twin

By Joel Thurtell

Why am I not ecstatic about the Detroit Free Press’s strong endorsement of the New International Trade Crossing, aka Detroit-Windosr bridge on Sunday, April 24, 2001?

How journalists shape their questions largely determines how they present information and conclusions to their readers.

The gist of a question also may tell us more about a reporter’s mindset than the answer he or she unfolds.

Sometimes, a question is so problematic that it produces more questions than it answers.

And a poorly-reasoned question can even produce fallacious answers.

So it is with a single question in an April 24, 2011 Detroit Free Press article that, the paper promised, “separates the swirling exaggerations from the truth in the border showdown critical to Michigan’s future.”

In a headline, “Breaking down bridge battle,” the Free Press promised: “Questions answered amid swirling accusations.”

Deep in the article, the Free Press poses this question:

“Why won’t the Canadians allow Moroun to twin his Ambassador Bridge, like he wants to?”

The question suggests that Canada is the only government opposed to Moroun’s twin bridge.

That is wrong.

Matty’s “twin” bridge is going nowhere on the U.S. side as well as in Canada.

He doesn’t have U.S. Coast Guard approval for his proposed new bridge.

Worse for him, he doesn’t even own the property on the U.S. side that he needs to build a new bridge.

To complete his twin bridge, Matty would have to acquire property he doesn’t own.

The property directly adjacent to his Ambassador Bridge belongs to the city of Detroit.

Matty illegally seized a section of Detroit’s Riverside Park, but the city went to court in 2008 and a judge has ordered Matty evicted.

Where does that leave Matty’s new bridge?

The bridge is dead on both sides of the border.

Why won’t the Free Press report the Riverside Park piece of this story?

The Riverside Park story has been reported on this blog, in Metro Times, The Detroit News, the Windsor Star and by Jack Lessenberry, a Metro Times columnist, radio and TV commentator and Wayne State University journalism professor.

But it slipped past the Free Press.

It is a blind spot that allows the Free Press to continue presenting Moroun’s proposed second bridge as a viable plan.

It is not.

The viability of the bridge, given Matty’s failure to meet basic permit requirements in both countries, is one more “swirling exaggeration” that the Free Press supposedly wants to set right.

If you don’t believe me, drive over to Windsor — please take the tunnel, not the bridge; no use lining Matty’s pocket even more — and look at the approach to Matty’s twin. It resembles a concrete cliff. Seems he started building the approach, then stopped. Didn’t have permits. That pretty much kills any bridge I can think of.

Just like there are two sides to a story, there are two ends to any bridge.

Now I’d like you to drive over to the foot of Ambassador Bridge. Walk to the chain-link fence Matty illegally put up to keep people out of a public park. Facing the Ambassador, please look to your left. You’ll see another concrete cliff that stops because Matty doesn’t own the part of Riverside Park he needs for his bridge.

I started out by opining that a poorly-worded question can open up more lines of questioning.

But left unchallenged, a bad question can propagate false conclusions, in this case the notion that there is something real about Matty’s quest for a twin to the Ambassador.

The Free Press promotes this assumption.

Here is a question to chew on: If, as I believe, the twin span is a pipe dream, totally unrealistic because it’s been blocked on both sides of the international border, why is Matty pursuing it?

Now, here’s another question: Given that the bridge lacks permissions on both sides of the border, why did Matty start to build it in the first place?

Is it because he knew this battle would be prolonged over several years and he needed to make the twin appear like a real thing by starting to build it? In other words, the twin might simply be a bluff by Matty to play with people’s minds, making him look like a genuine player in the new bridge game when in fact he’s a big fake.

Is it possible that Matty truly believed when he started pouring concrete that there would be no opposition and that he could build the bridge, at least on the U.S. side, with the compliance of Detroit, Michigan and U.S. authorities?

The media are replete these days with stories about Matty and the tale of two bridges. It’s hard to remember, but two and a half years ago, there was very little news coverage about Matty. Maybe the billionaire thought he could get away with building his sham bridge on city of Detroit land and nobody would notice. For years, the Mayor of Felonies, Kwame Kilpatrick, was in Matty’s pocket.

Free Press editorial writers on the same day strongly urged that the government bridge be built, rather than Matty’s twin.

The Free Press is out of sync with itself.

Why won’t Free Press reporters give up on the myth of Matty’s twin?