Distorting Malibu image

    0
    180

    Like it or not, we live in an era where political issues are fought and won by using the media to manipulate public perceptions. It is time for the City of Malibu to stop playing the role of victim, to start playing the game, before the game is lost.

    As we are sure you’re aware, there has been a recent spate of distorted publicity about Malibu and its citizens in the press and on TV. In particular we call your attention to the piece from the May 3 edition of USA Today, “Malibu’s Rich and Famous Fight to Keep Beach Private,” currently posted on their website, along with a streaming video that is similarly biased. As concerned residents, we are appalled by the one-sided slant of these stories. They fail to address the questionable legitimacy and risk to the public and to the government of the Coastal Commission policies.

    The beach access issue, as we know, is misguided in many ways. But perhaps most significantly, the Commission’s insistence on public access in residential areas to beaches with no lifeguards, no toilet facilities or parking space creates serious potential risk to the public, as well as liability for the State, the County, the City and for homeowners. Moreover, the risk is totally unnecessary. There are already miles of unparalleled, beautifully maintained public beaches in Malibu. That is the story that is not being told.

    Someone with a paranoid bent could even suspect that certain special interests might be behind such biased reporting in effect, mounting a kind of media war against Malibu. That clearly farfetched possibility notwithstanding, the Malibu Road Property Owners Association urges the City Council to allocate revenues for a professional public relations campaign to help achieve more balanced coverage of this story. To enlist some of our rich-and-famous to help tell the real story!

    Thomas B. Sawyer, president

    Malibu Road Property Owners Association