VAR Commonwealth Journal - Editor's Letter

So here is something a little different than the normal listings and mortgage info. 

I was reading the August/September 2012 issue of Commonwealth Journal, one of many that we as Realtors get to keep us updated on the market and other job related issues.  I was reading the letter from the editor, Andrew Kantor. He had some interesting points about "news" and I think others need to read.  So here it is, just for your reading pleasure...straight from the journal onto this blog!

"Before I came to VAR, I was a newspaper reporter on a business and techonology beat.  My job could have been summed up as "Go and find out what's happening, then tell other people about it."  At least that was what I believed.

Reporters were supposed to tell people about what was going on in the world.  Yes, 'civilians' could attend meetings, make phone calls, dig through douments and so on, but the point of a reporter was to save the public the trouble.  In theory, members of a community would say, "I trust the people at the Post/Time/News/Journal to get the story and tell me what happened and what it means."

In other words, a reporter's job was to tell people what really happened.  They were, at the risk of a bit of hyperbole, seekers of the truth.  If someone claimed X and someone else claimed Y, a reporter's job was to figure out which was actually true. 

Today, of course, they hardly ever do that.  Instead, they simply report that 'Some people say I, others say Y, and gosh darn in, you figure it out for yourself.'

Newspaper got themselves caught in a vicious cyle.  Corporate interests took over for good journalism, and stories got blander, so as not to offend potential advertisers.  At the same time, indiviudals began doing their own "journalism" in the form of blogs.  They weren't afraid to pull punches.  They made newspapers look bland. 

Newspaper readership dropped.  Advertisers pulled out.  The papers responded by getting even blander, and by trying all sorts of non-news tactics - more "life" features, more stuff about people and personality.  Less explaining what was real, more just telling us what people said.

Instead of telling people what's real, they tell people what other people think or feel or believe is real. The entire scientific community could say that the moon is made of riok and dirt, but the newspapers will give equal time to a loud enough group of yokels who say it's made of green cheese.  Why take chances?

Which brings us to the real estate market.  It's getting better.  Really.  And in a big was, across the board.  Yet so few news outlets semm willing to state that definitively and point out that yes Virginia, we're in a recovery.  So let us do it for you (and them).  Check out the cover story on page 20.  That's where we put the pieces together, from all sorts of sources measuring all sorts of metrics.  The conclusion is pretty much inescapable.  And we're willing to say so." - Andrew Kantor, Editor of Commonwealth.

Again, these are his words, not ours, but interesting prespective huh?  It's so true that we see so many signs of the market being better than the media portrays, yet no one wants to say that we are in a recovery.  We'll be sharing more of the "story on page 20" that he is referring to, so don't you worry!  We've got the facts to back it up, thanks to the Commonwealth Journal and Virginia Association of Realtors.