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

PCWorld executive editor Ung dies at 58

PCWorld executive editor Gordon Mah Ung, a tireless journalist we once described as a founding father…

11 hours ago

CNBC taps Sullivan as “Power Lunch” co-anchor

CNBC senior vice president Dan Colarusso sent out the following on Monday: Before this year comes to…

2 days ago

Business Insider hires Brooks as standards editor

Business Insider editor in chief Jamie Heller sent out the following on Monday: I'm excited to share…

2 days ago

Is this the end of CoinDesk as we know it?

Former CoinDesk editorial staffer Michael McSweeney writes about the recent happenings at the cryptocurrency news site, where…

2 days ago

LinkedIn finance editor Singh departs

Manas Pratap Singh, finance editor for LinkedIn News Europe, has left for a new opportunity…

3 days ago

Washington Post announces start of third newsroom

Washington Post executive editor Matt Murray sent out the following on Friday: Dear All, Over the last…

4 days ago