Media exaggerated opposition to Amazon deal in New York, the total loss of jobs is closer to 100,000

Crain's New York Business:

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Almost from the moment in November when Amazon decided to put its second headquarters in Queens, opponents grabbed the spotlight. The political reporters are obsessed with the impact of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and once she seized on the issue with other progressive groups, their opposition and whether they could defeat the establishment became the story.

But less than a month later, the respected Quinnipiac poll found that voters in Queens and the rest of the city supported the Amazon deal by a wide margin. The media narrative was simply wrong, but the reporters (too few of whom were business reporters) clung to their story line. The most egregious example came at the second City Council hearing on the deal, when the reporters ignored a pro-Amazon rally outside City Hall to focus on the opponents inside.

Days after a Siena poll confirmed the Quinnipiac finding, Amazon announced it would no longer pursue a Long Island City location because of the opposition. Suddenly reporters began asking whether the decision would be bad for New York. "Do you know of any example where a city turned its back on 25,000 jobs?" one television reporter asked me.

The media discovered that Long Island City wasn't exactly the booming area it had assumed. Local television stations in particular discovered the many local businesses that supported the plan and said the neighborhood needed it....
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The CEO of JP Morgan Chase said the total job losses were closer to 100,000.

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“It wasn’t just the 25,000 jobs that Amazon was going to do. It was probably going to be about 100,000 jobs supporting it," Dimon said at the National Governors Association Winter Meeting over the weekend. "And they would have gone from low skill to high skilled to consultants to lawyers to restaurants to barbers and construction workers," said Dimon, who donates to both parties. "That’s the shame, that’s what they lost, the whole ecosystem that creates jobs and furthers interest and cities and states acts that act that way, they will be long-term losers.”
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The ignorance of the political opponents of the project and that of most of the media covering the controversy was very costly to the economy of the area.  While there was a split among liberal politicians about the project, the liberals in the media sided with the opponents and escalated the conflict.