Categories: OLD Media Moves

Sacramento readers complain about real estate coverage

Armando Acuña, the public editor of the Sacramento Bee, writes about how newspaper readers have complained about its coverage of the real estate market.

Acuña wrote, “In a similar vein, reader Bob Fairbanks of Sacramento criticized the paper for sensationalizing news about home foreclosures.

“He was reacting to a recent front-page story about foreclosures and defaults reaching the highest rates ever recorded in California and that the outlook continued to look grim.

The ‘page one story today with its huge graphic and headline declaring ‘Foreclosures soar to state record’ omitted a key statistic that could have seriously diminished the story’s sensationalistic tone,’ wrote Fairbanks, a retired journalist, in his digital missive.

“‘And that is the number of California mortgages that are NOT being foreclosed. If it turns out that the number of foreclosures, though increasing, remains in some minuscule range, then this ‘sky is falling’ tale clearly belongs more in a supermarket tabloid than in our esteemed Sacramento Bee.'”

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.

Recent Posts

The evolution of the WSJ beyond finance

Rahat Kapur of Campaign looks at the evolution The Wall Street Journal. Kapur writes, "The transformation…

8 hours ago

Silicon Valley Biz Journal seeks a reporter

This position will be Hybrid in the office/market 3 days per week, and those days…

8 hours ago

Economist’s Bennet, WSJ’s Morrow receive awards

The Fund for American Studies presented James Bennet of The Economist with the Kenneth Y. Tomlinson Award…

16 hours ago

WSJ is testing AI-generated article summaries

The Wall Street Journal is experimenting with AI-generated article summaries that appear at the top…

17 hours ago

Cohen joining Bloomberg Tax

Zach Cohen is joining Bloomberg Tax to cover the fiscal cliff and tax issues on…

17 hours ago

Avila named interim editor for Automotive Dive

Larry Avila has been named interim editor for Automotive Dive, an Industry Dive publication. He…

17 hours ago