My nightly rant
September 16, 2005 at 2:39 pm mikebarton 2 comments
I work late as a subeditor and here is my rant. Tonight my boss said thanks for my tip to pull a story by one of our most senior journalists because his story did not add up. As a subeditor at the Newcastle Herald I do about 10-12 stories a night, checking them for news lead, accuracy, grammar, and writing a heading and caption for accompanying photographs. This one was just another sausage in the factory. But because I have a critical eye for the property industry I noticed that the ‘study’ it was using was saying the construction industry was headed for a slump while its authors said a turnaround was in the cards. A supporting story was about a local tennis star who had bought well before the hyped out market and was just now getting around to renovating. But she was using her mum and dad for labour, avoiding labourers (read: the industry) for all but $60K. Well, that is no small figure but the logic was not there. The news of late is that petrol is pinching everyday people and i reckon that means everything from dinners out to renovations in the wings would get the nix – against the property industry’s self-propagating prediction. It was pulled and it motivates me to follow my instinct to do a story on just who is behind pumping the media on this kinda stuff.
“Renovations give industry a lifeline” headline should be “Builders waiting for the storm”
Just a small success in stopping the media rot in PR-instigated stories. Subs: 1, Industry: 4546. Go figure.
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1.
craig | September 17, 2005 at 1:57 am
I can remember a story just like this one appearing on the ABC’s Media Watch program. I forget which paper published it, however it turned out to be completely bogus. Misquoting celebrities and other goodies. Sounds like nothing has changed.
Good catch. At least someone in journalism is doing their work.
2.
mikebarton | September 17, 2005 at 2:30 pm
Tks. I think that was the property writer for the Daily telegraph, who had apparently just made up that celebrities were looking at Sydney property. She was sacked.
With using property forecasters and industry spokesmen it seems we can’t get an accurate view of the state of the market. But I reckon prices are still very hight, at least compared to wages, and only people who bought pre-boom would benefit financially from renovating, with the cost of contractors and laborers.
The days of a real bargain are pretyy well over in Newcastle. if it’s cheap it is in a bad spot or needs heaps of work.
WIth all the international economists warning that housing could be stagnant for 15 years – until wages catch up – I dont belive a word of the industry.