“Youth Media Council is the best kind of news consumer: critical, but thoughtful. Using sound participatory research methods, YMC assesses what local news has been saying about housing and development, and even more important, what’s been left out of the story. Yet this is not a rant. YMC understands the constraints on journalists as well as the perspective of neighborhood residents. Smart reporters will mine the analysis to get the scoop on untold stories while advocates can read this and learn how to be better sources. YMC’s research shows clearly that both groups need to improve their storytelling if we are to understand the true impact of displacement and development on our neighborhoods.”  Lori Dorfman, Berkeley Media Studies Group

“Displacing the Dream is an important resource not just for Bay Area activists, but for all those working across the country on corporate development, gentrification, and displacement.  This excellent resource from the Youth Media Council provides a clear model and map to undertake a participatory process of media making and analysis.”  Carolyn Cushing, Managing Director, Progressive Communicators Network

“Coverage upholds developers and corporate interests as the sole solution.  So there’s this dominant language that says there is no alternative. We want folks to know that there are alternatives, and that another city, another world, is possible.”  Alicia Schwartz, POWER

“Market rate development takes credit for stuff that community does.  It’s the people that do work and build the neighborhoods.  It’s easy to think it’s the developers who make the parks and schools better, but it’s actually the people – organized people – who make that stuff happen.”  Chirs Durazo, SOMCAN

“There is a true crisis for communities of color in the Bay Area.  This is particularly true for black families who are being pushed out of San Francisco.  Report on conditions that affect families struggling to stay.  What does it mean to live with an in-law, what does it mean to live as a family of five in a studio?  What does it mean to live as 5 families in a two-bedroom house?”  Ingrid Gonzales, Coleman Advocates

"They say we don’t have the power ourselves to come up with solutions as a community, when in fact we have solutions and we have the power to make our solutions viable. Our solution for the Kelly Moore site was to have a community developer put in an offer and build 70 units of affordable family rental housing on this land with community services on the ground floor.  We even offered to just buy the land off of the developer.  The coverage framed it as just an idea – or even an ideal – but not as an actual, concrete proposal for our community." Guadalupe Arreola, St. Peter’s Housing

“The media is really good at talking about who’s benefiting from development.  We want to make sure that the actual impact of displacement is being told.  We want to make sure that individual stories are used to connect the issue to the fact this is happening systematically and it’s not just about what’s happening to an individual family.  It’s about what’s happening to a neighborhood, what’s happening to the city, and nationally.  We want to draw connections between housing and jobs, connections between what’s happening in Miami and West Oakland and the Bayview and Chicago and New York.”  Vanessa Moses, Just Cause Oakland

“Dealing with corporate media can feel like an uphill battle – the example being the story about ‘MAC stymies displacement.’  We really took that reporter around, and tried to build a relationship, but he didn’t write the headline or edit the piece.  We hope this report can be a conversation starter with the big newspapers, but we also understand that alternative media is powerful for our neighborhoods, and can help create news that influences the major newspapers and media outlets.”  Oscar Grande, PODER