ABC’s Media Watch called to ask what I thought about media coverage of real estate issues. I said I could tell them if they had a couple of days to spare. It’s a bit like asking Greens politicians how they feel about the mining industry.
Journalistic coverage of real estate in this country is beyond dreadful. Organisations with vested interests pump out propaganda in the form of press releases and so-called journalists recycle them. No questions asked. Nothing checked. No background research. No alternative views sought.
In other words, no journalism takes place. We need a new name for the process of press release recycling that has replaced the genuine journalism that took place in former times. Journalism is no longer an accurate description.
There are “journalists” working for major metropolitan newspapers who write articles only when a press release drops on their desk. The quick re-write they throw together usually appears with a picture byline, implying that they are an authority, that the information thereunder is all their own work and that what you are reading has credibility.
People and organisations with propaganda to peddle or simply with a passion for publicity know this. Fire off a press release and “journalists” will do your marketing for you. If it’s something sensationally negative, your chances of success increase exponentially.
I’ve spoken to many of these pretend journalists. Some are so comfortable in their mediocrity they actually think they’re doing a good job. Others know that their output is garbage but they don’t care — it’s a living.
In some cases, it’s criminally negligent. Elderly people have lost their retirement savings because media misinformation led them towards disastrous investment decisions.
This is why the erosion of journalistic standards in the reporting of real estate is so serious. The financial commitment involved in a real estate purchase is huge, and consumers need good information to make sensible decisions.
Australia needs people to invest for many reasons, including to provide for their retirement so as not to burden the state in times of rising numbers of retirees. If consumers make bad decisions because their heads are full of media misinformation, their financial lives can be destroyed, and the nation suffers.
Which brings me to an annual event which illustrates the failings of real estate journalism more than any other situation: the publication of a piece of self-serving propaganda called the Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey.
This document is political posturing by vested interests and should never be featured by any media outlet in Australia. It is published by a lobby group that campaigns for the end of government regulations that restrict the activities of land developers. The group argues that regulation causes prices to rise and makes homes unaffordable. It has created a political document masquerading as research to support their views.
Members of this group are particularly feverish in their condemnation of prices in Australia and usually declare that we have the world’s most unaffordable real estate — despite the fact that their “research” features only six nations. Nowhere in Europe is included, nor any nation or city in Asia except Hong Kong. Africa and South America are ignored.
Press releases from the Demographia zealots lobbed in newspaper offices this week. Their treatment by publications around the country was scandalous. Their extreme claims were published unchallenged. No alternative views were sought. The outrageously inaccurate contention that Australia has the most unaffordable housing in the world was reported as fact.
“Australian housing tops world’s least attainable list” was typical of the headlines that appeared around the nation. Most of the headlines were, essentially, lies.
In my perfect world, there would be a commission of inquiry and the people who wrote this garbage would be charged. Journalists have an obligation to the public to present information that is fair, accurate and balanced. Failure to do so should be a criminal offence.
In essence, journalists no longer give a damn. If it’s a cheap and easy headline of the type journalists instinctively like — something sensationally negative — then no questions are asked. Is it true? Who cares? It’ll sell a few papers.
My first rule of successful property investment: stop reading newspapers.
*This article was first published at Property Observer
“We need a new name for the process of press release recycling that has replaced the genuine journalism” – it’s called being ’embedded’!
@malibbis I think ’embedded’ is too kind. I prefer ‘lickspittle’.
Just “journalistic coverage of real estate in this country is beyond dreadful”?
Like the rest, where most are op-eds prone to straining the news through their egos and prejudices, too lazy to have their opinions challenged. Working to a prescribed outcome – not to the “chaos” where some stories might lead.
Saw the write ups and commented in the social media on the hog wash they were. The companies quoted APM and RP DATA are owned by Fairfax, and spread regular inaccuracies regarding property statistics. Just subscribe to the REIV owned PDOL and RP Data and compare the weekly Auction results both publish, the discrepancies are interesting, particularly pay attention to the number of Auctions RP Data publishes, (by my reckoning about 50% of the actual number of auctions) that means that their database which they present as complete is in fact totally inconclusive. Yet they sell price searches to the gullible public which are quiet incomplete.
Doesn’t this cover most journalism to day in most areas of consumer choice. Whether it is real estate, electronics, wine, travel, gastronomy, its the same process- an advertorial of vested interest with the companies promoted based on their purchase of advertising.
The same is true of pay television and even the free to air and the ABC are all caught in the trap with advertorial programming and content.
The so called News Analysis at times of ratings also are just advertising( you have to reward the advertisers and sponsors) who are paying top dollar somehow.
The Power of the PR release to journalists who are both bone idle and often ill informed.
Wine and Food Journalism are just the excuse for a junket with all the trimmings and even wine journalists themselves are realising that they are irrelevant to the wine average consumer.
They like so many other industries are realising that social media is a far more productive medium, but even they are now becoming a part of the spam mix of glitz and misinformation, but it would be a dull old world without it. Facebook is now SpamBook.
Consumers are of course more savvy and soon source other opinions or join bloggs of other consumer experiences and as Coles found out recently a ” viral ” blogg can be very damaging to the brand image.
The Get- UP campaigns illustrate the need to let the advertisers know that consumers care with whom they associate and that values match each other.
Note the way sponsors deserted Armstrong, Warne, and Tiger Woods, consumers behave in the same way.
Its not just sports people, its sporting events as well – the ” refer” to the TV umpire is just an attention getter and not a part of the game and is boring.
How much damage has the use of child labour done for Apple or is that their technology is not what it has been made out to be and that their competitors are doing it better.
It is a question of the interface of perceived values and guess what who are the least respected professions — real estate sales, electronics sales people, ( especially mobile phones and tablets) and or course journalists.
The recent article in Crikey shows that believability is about in line with share of audience ( people see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear) and block out the rest of the message. ( in other words there is no such a thing as balance.
It is polarised to a best / worst scenario in the consumers mind.
Consumers are driven by habit (low involvement) in over 90% of instances and are only aroused to act ( positive or negative ) when dissonance occurs within their perceived values framework.