Categories: OLD Media Moves

Business press not trying to sensationalize housing market woes

Earl Maucker, the editor of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, responds to reader complaints that the newspaper is sensationalizing the drop in housing prices by arguing that the issue is news.

Maucker wrote, “If we were to rewind to the past two to three years, you would find just as many headlines and front-page stories reporting 30 percent increases in the price of homes and a housing market that was in the midst of a historic building boom.

“Here is another fact we can’t ignore: Based on our research, our readers rate stories about the cost of living, the price of housing, property tax and trends in the housing business among the top stories they want to read about.

“Everybody is impacted by this story. It is one of a number of pocketbook issues that affect readers directly, and they have an enormous appetite for information.

“So stories about the slump â€” just as stories a year ago about the red-hot housing market â€” are and will continue to be front page news.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.