Saturday, April 29, 2006

NYTimes Walkthrough Blog Mentions This Blog

Here is the Post:

Bloggers vs. Realtors
Categories: Agents & Brokers

The bubble boys are chronicling every word coming out of the mouth of the National Association of Realtors’ chief economist, David Lereah. Check out this new blog: The David Lereah Watch.

It’s not the most exciting blog because Mr. Lereah isn’t really a controversial figure. He’s an economist trying to make predictions to guide the members of his association. And it isn’t clear why his utterances need to be scrutinized as if they were emanating from Alan Greenspan. But Mr. Lereah has become a target for those who get giddy thinking that the real estate market might collapse. They want him to say it will.

To quote from the mission statement of the site:

Mr. Lereah tells half truths and manipulates facts and figures. He cannot be trusted as he is a paid shill.

But the blogger hasn’t found an example of that assertion yet.

I see that the N.A.R. has started its own blog offering advice to its members. Some of the posts are a reaction to the book “Freakonomics,” which suggests that agents’ interests and those of their clients aren’t always aligned. At other times, it warns agents how the media types operate:

The media’s need for balance poses both challenges and opportunities. Sometimes you may get a call from a reporter working on deadline who only wants your reaction to a story that is already written. You should expect only a small citation in the story. Make sure it’s the best possible statement by preparing carefully.

But nothing so far about those bubble bloggers. – DAMON DARLIN

1 Comments:

At 6:42 PM, Blogger Athena said...

What do they have against this blog? Good grief... is it not too much to ask that a spokesperson for an industry that gets so much media attention and page inches should at least be credible?

I think the fact that there are so many quotes to be had from David L. speaks of the indictment that should be coming of the mainstream press that functions as nothing more than a glorified PR news wire simply regurgitating information and actively avoiding doing any reporting of their own.

 

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