The struggle to find something good to write about

News editor Jeremy Stoltz of The Business Ledger in suburban Chicago writes about the difficult balance of writing business news in a bad economy.

Stoltz writes, “Our hands are tied at this point, and every time we write a story we have to conduct some type of Houdini act just to give it some type of positive spin. Sadly, this is still not enough for some.

“I recently received an e-mail from a reader in the residential real estate industry which was titled ‘unbelievable.’ The message blasted me for painting an overly negative image of the real estate industry. It went on to imply that my intentions were to ignore all the good and focus only on the bad to encourage readership.

“Looking back on the story, there were seven sources I contacted for it and the writing was just basically transitions between their quotes. I implied nothing, just regurgitated what my expert sources, who have years of experience in their field, told me. And on top of that, the article was about commercial real estate, not residential.

“Yet my friendly reader felt it necessary to bullet-point my faults and lace his message with accusations.”

Read more here.