Let’s begin this with the acknowledgment that the Record Searchlight is nothing but a business that makes money selling advertising. In the past, their position in our community as a strong representative of independent journalism guaranteed readership, and thus advertising revenue. Now, they are attempting to switch to an online model, where page-views replace readership in dollar terms of what they can charge for advertising. In this new model, accuracy is much less useful in generating page views than controversy. So now, if a news report can contain a line or a premise that will generate page upon page of anonymous comments online, it serves to increase their apparent attraction to advertisers, by increasing the page view count.

Thus, controversial statements and comment trolling have replaced journalistic integrity and community standards at the RS. Trolling is the practice of deliberately making an inflammatory statement to increase the comments. Online, highly commented articles are given a flashing icon to further draw your attention. It’s all about the page view count.

The Thanksgiving Day article about the housing market is a prime example. The article goes on for a while with reasonably accurate and useful statistical information. But then to juice up the page view, they throw in a zinger about real estate agents that was guaranteed to generate comments. The article is here:

http://www.redding.com/news/2008/nov/26/area-housing-market-slips-prices-drop-14-over-past/

Go there if you want to help them add to their page views, and increase ad revenues, I suppose. The zinger was this:

“It’s a far cry from the first quarter of 2003 when year-over-year home values in Redding jumped 16.35 percent — tops in the nation — and real estate agents were advising clients to buy now or get priced out of the market.”

It was bound to get results, maybe even especially since it had no basis in fact. It was a straw man. A classic troll for comments. “Happy Thanksgiving, agents! We put words in your mouth for you, and then blame you for the bubble.”

It was also wildly hypocritical. Among those most vigorously fueling the buying frenzy of the boom was the RS, which continually harped on it with housing appreciation articles, and “flip this house” style housing porn. Also, one of the single largest beneficiaries of the housing boom was the RS, riding a wave of agent-paid multimillion dollar advertising revenue all the way to the bank. So, it was in their best interest to drive the housing frenzy, and they did so with gusto. That makes them just as much real estate salesman as any individual agent. If blame is to be handed out for the ill effects of the housing bubble, that blame should be squarely placed on the Record Searchlight hypocrites.

People love to generalize about soul-less salespeople, who eagerly sell out their friends and community members in the name of just one more sale. I think now we have to include our former hometown newspaper in that soul deprived category. The editorial department writes articles now only trolling to increase sales revenue. Goodbye journalism. Hello hypocrisy.

I have so much to be grateful about, it wouldn’t even fit into a day. Nevertheless we are celebrating at home with friends and family, and Karry’s usual “Martha Stewart on steroids” dinner. Love it all.

If you make the rounds of local blogs, you’ve probably seen this recent post. But if not, I will bring this to your attention for today, as it follows the spirit. My friend and fellow Realtor Lara Wells Osborn wrote a thought-provoking post over at Food For Thought. It’s one of those rare pieces that stays with you long after reading. Lara is one of my favorite fellow agents. She and her husband have several cute kids too, which added poignancy to her excellent prose. That, along with the fact that she has established herself as a marketer of luxury homes, and has done very well with that high-end market segment. She’s just a good person to be around, and people sense that sort of thing. You should read her post if you didn’t already, and the link is HERE.

Thanks for writing, Lara. And a Happy and thoughtful Thanksgiving to all!

Diestlehorst bones by Skip

Hee! This one tickled my funny bone. Thanks to Andy and Glenda, the Tropical Twosome, for this twisted bit of humor.

This video showed up in my e-mail the other day. I don’t know if it’s authorized, but it’s nice. It says the music was recorded Freitag (German for Friday) Nov 14. Solar Fields is a European music artist with whom I have a slender connection. Craig Padilla and I were invited to appear on a compilation CD from 2002 called the Fahrenheit Project on the French label Ultimae. Craig and I submitted a track from Beyond Beta, and Solar Fields contributed a track called Outlined surfaces. Since then I have followed the music vicariously, and find that we are very much in the same vibe. I see that the Fahrenheit Project #1 is now out of print, and that’s a shame. It was a very tasty compilation. The Ultimae label is run by Vince and Sunshine from Lyons, France, self described “panoramic people” in their newsletters. I hope we meet someday. Terrific people, great music, all across the sea. It’s always surprising to me that we seem to have a fan base in Europe.

I see their website has a review among several of the Fahrenheit compilation, in which our ambient beatless track is described as “not dreadful.” Ouch! Hee hee. I guess it could be worse.

The other day I wrote about gasoline prices falling twice in one day. It’s fallen again. Before you rejoice too much about the sudden cheap gas, you may want to consider it as a leading indicator of a deflationary economy. They didn’t just find more gas on Gas Point Road or anything. There was no increase in supply. Prices are falling with demand. What’s that mean for us? Well I don’t exactly know, but you might want to read what Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said about this possibility 6 years ago today. Take a few minutes and read through his thoughts about the subject HERE. Definitely worth your time. Somewhat frightening, actually. (I got a couple of offline comments about my post scaring people. that wasn’t the intent. If you read the Bernanke piece, it looks like his main weapon of choice to fight deflation will be a printing press, to print a bunch of money to spread around “willy nilly” ((his words)) That’s a prospect worth planning for.)

We’ve been members of the Redding Chamber of Commerce since 2005. I never thought of myself as a “chamber” type person, but it’s actually a pretty good thing, and I’ve learned a lot. Once a week, many members meet for what’s called Greeters. It’s always on Thursday mornings at 8:00 am, and always at a different local business. This week it was at Need2Speed.

At Greeters we showcase the host business for a few minutes, and then pass the microphone around and greet one another. Just say who you are and a few words and pass the mic. Sounds goofier than it really is. Although it is certainly goofy too… more…

I love the colors of the Fall. This Liquidamber seems to be growing out of the top of my car here. I took this a few days ago. I was thinking about my Cadillac today after watching GM CEO Rick Wagoner… more…

Sunday’s RS had a cover story (no less) about some local real estate agents hosting a seminar to “help” homeowners facing foreclosure. It posted the article as though it were news worthy of the cover, above the fold. At the seminar will be information, some for a fee, that will help them avoid foreclosure.

So let me see if I have this right RS. We gather the most vulnerable of our citizens, possibly already victimized, and put them in a room to face further possible exploitation. more…

As in, what happened with all the bad mortgages, and how that affected the financial markets. The drawings are crude, shall we say, and so is the language, but it makes the point. Not suitable for work, maybe, and don’t look at it if you are easily offended. I saw this a while back but thought it worth posting in case you didn’t see it. I think it pretty much sums it up.

You’ll need to view this in full screen mode to read it, which is the little icon that looks like a projection screen at the bottom of the slide viewer. The show has no audio, so you might want to put some music on first by clicking on the Ovi player. This piece, Infinity’s Edge is from the live planetarium recordings featuring Craig Padilla I have been running the past few days, and is about 10 minutes long.

I ran across this intrepid reporter getting video of the cheap $2.12 gas at Arco yesterday. Never thought I’d see that again. Later I went by there after he’d gone, and they had dropped it again to $1.99. That news video didn’t last long! Send out the reporter again.

This tune titled Indian Spirits is another piece from our live series at the Schreder Planetarium, as promised yesterday. It features Craig singing. Here’s the lyric sheet: “Ahhhhhh.” Hee. Well maybe it’s Uhhh, not exactly sure about that, it’s been a long time. Anyway I enjoyed hearing it again today, and I hope you like it too.