A friend of mine, Ron Roel, who was a reporter and editor at New York Newsday [1] for more than 20 years, including real estate coverage, recently wrote a piece about the media coverage of real estate. As the co-founder of Real Estate Next [2], an educational service for the real estate community, he has often pondered the following questions, as have many others in the real estate community (self-included):
- Why do so many people complain that the news media focuses too much on negative stories, when most editors and reporters believe they’re just trying to cover what happens day to day?
- Does the news media really spend more time focusing on the housing bust than it did on the “boom” of the last few years?
- And what impact does the news media have in affecting news trends and shaping public opinion, beyond simply reporting events?
Ron’s white paper is titled Real Estate and the Media: Understanding news coverage and its impact on the housing market [3] and is worth a read.