Hey there.

I have no idea what this post of yours is about, but I've been thinking a bit about the Vancouver Sun and the role of journalists and the media a bit recently.

The reason I have been thinking about this is because of the story you had on the front page last Saturday about the 15 Myths of Real Estate and the ensuing debacle with the comments to the online version of the story.

I've been thinking about this episode as kind of a low water mark for journalism, and a bit of a watershed for the Sun, and even newspapers, in a number of ways.

First, the story itself was not very good, which by itself is not that unusual in this area for the Sun (sorry). It purported to debunk "myths" about Vancouver real estate. However, it was a very shallow piece of writing. which felt in a lot of ways like an advertorial for the real estate industry. I wish that would have been surprising, but, frankly, it wasn't (again, sorry). The Sun suffers from a perception that it has been captured by its advertisers, notably the real estate industry, and this story, in effect, asked the real estate industry what it thought about real estate, and came up with the usual platitudes, many of which have become running jokes south of the border.

Now, I don't know if you've noticed, but there is a bit of a kerfuffle happening south of the border to do with real estate. As there is in Australia, England, Spain, Ireland, and pretty much every market that has seen a property frenzy like Vancouver's. Many of your readers, being semi-literate citizens of the electronic age, are aware of this. In addition, many of your readers are also aware of rising inventories in Vancouver, declining sales, a likely recession in our biggest export market, a credit contraction, a likely recession in our own country, a severe contraction in the forestry industry, and an impossible level of affordability in the local real estate market (any of these points having been reported by the Sun!). Not to mention recently a book that foretells doom in Canadian real estate hit #4 on the best seller list, which, whether or not it is complete pap, surely says something about current psychology.

Many of these readers, using their very own brains (which many of them actually use on a daily basis in jobs in knowledge industries where they have to be almost as smart as journalists), have formed the opinion that these factors might, on the off chance, pose a bit of a risk for local real estate and perhaps expected that these points would somehow make their way into this story.

Not so. And, not to belabour the point, the piece was lacking. To a comical degree.

Anyhoo, the online version of the story attracted many comments which decried the lack of balance, and called the Sun out on having missed the real story here, and accusing the Sun of being in its advertisers' pockets.

And here's the interesting part. A day and, say, 40 comments later, the Sun yanked the comments. No explanation, no nothing.

Remarkable.

And it gets more remarkable. This being the modern era, those comments had actually been captured and were reposted by a truth-loving hobbyist on a local real estate blog, and were welcomed with much hooting and hollering about the lack of integrity of the Sun.

And, lo and behold, a day later some (but not all) of those comments reappeared on the Sun's online article.

I'll continue in a new post, just in case my loquaciousness causes technical difficulties..

1. Give up on the journalistic convention of attribution of knowledge.

Readers are aware journalists are people, and believe (nay, hope!) that as people with functioning brains, journalists can have Their Own Thoughts. And that involves being skeptical of a realtor who says that now is a good time to buy or sell a home.

The major flaw with the original story in this debacle is that there is no institutional player who will point out the risks and potential downsides in the current real estate market. Yet there are many Industry Professionals who are available for a soundbite who are eager to boost their own industry. It seems the current model of reporting only accepts the views of "experts" who will go on record, and will not permit the journalist to draw together data points (even using stories in his own paper!) to create a more skeptical, analytical outlook.

Shame, because most of your readers are accustomed to thinking for themselves, and can spot when someone is talking their book. And they get a little frustrated that a journalist is unable to ask the same questions they would, and wonder, well, what's the point of the newspaper story anyway?

So. The good online channels I have seen have a core with an individual with a strong ability to provide analysis, not just parrot what others think. Or at least offer the soundbite up and allow others to call bullsh*t.

2. Understand the milieu you are entering.

There is an ethic to blog hosting, which the Sun totally mangled in this episode, with the result that it came off as some hackneyed Politburo kind of institution. All comments must be kept. Acknowledge that it is the commenters who are adding value. It is a collaborative exercise, and only flourishes where commenters trust that their views will be relayed. The comments are not an afterthought, and are not the property of the blogger. Other than off colour, relentlessly bad faith or off topic posts, everything adds value and stays. Isn't this the whole truthseeking exercise?

3. Maintain a brand that centres on honesty, integrity, and unflinching analysis.

The Sun really doesn't have this now, and I don't know if this is attainable for the Sun, so your question I hope doesn't relate to the Sun, because it's completely hopeless at this point (sorry, once again), but the successful online presences I have seen have relied on a blogger/reporter/columnist that is quite centred on independent thinking and analysis. Think Krugman. This can be exhausting, and can conflict with making a living as a newspaper positioning itself as the voice of the middle class in a mid size market. Frankly, the Sun ain't sophisticated enough to do this, and frankly, the trust and honesty just ain't there.

4. Have a strong individual online presence

Many newspaper blogs seem like such an afterthought. 20 word posts, no comments, no real thread or idea. Keep it to a few strong personalities (or personal brands) who own the ideas that they have, rather than parroting something someone smarter said. The corollary is that the blogger has to have some decent analytical chops and street cred. Tall order.

Though, honestly, the successful blogs I frequent are not affiliated with major media outlets. They are independents, or run by academics. It really seems difficult for a columnist or journalist to be successful in this medium. I think this is simply due to years of reporting by soundbite, and a sense that major media is corrupt and unwilling to venture into the realm of ideas. No one now expects a journalist to be any sort of conduit for interesting or controversial ideas. That's just kind of where you are right now. That's the reason something like calculatedrisk.com gets 100-odd comments a post, and this blog gets between 0 and 2.

Anyway, thanks for the soapbox.

I'd be interested to know if the 15 Myths thing was any sort of event within the walls of the Sun. C'mon -- start now, and create the integrity, personality and honesty to create an interesting blog!

Sorry, my mistake. Perhaps you have to be clearer -- there you are front and centre as the managing editor of the Sun. That's the first thing the eye alights upon on your page.

I think it's a bit disingenuous to highlight that fact, and then say that you're not going to engage on topics about the Sun. You are kind of stuck with being who you are.

And I don't know where you "made it clear the purpose of this [blog] is to find and discuss research on the media business..." Is it on this page somewhere?

And my post was, I thought, about media change, or at least a specific example (which happened to be the paper you are managing editor of) of a failure to adapt to the current readership.

I am sorry you are not interested in it, because I found this incident a fascinating case study about how by failing to appreciate the rules of the new media game, old media can really shoot itself in the foot. It was also in a way about the media's being kind of hard of hearing about things their readers are telling them, and about the challenges of competing with content providers that do not have to earn money and attract advertising.

I'm disappointed you don't share my interest in this incident, particularly as it seems pretty relevant to a blog on journalism. I think you're cutting it a little fine, frankly, but that's your business. Blog away about media change then, as it relates to people other than you.

And I'm sorry the comments were long, but I type fast when I get going.