Housing

As we've noted at NewsBusters, there's been scant coverage of a new scandal involving Sens. Chris Dodd (Conn.) and Kent Conrad (N.D.). Both senators chair committees with oversight of the financial industry and Dodd is behind a bailout package for mortgage lender Countrywide. Both senators got "VIP" treatment from Countrywide Financial for refinancing agreements on their respective mortgages.So…

I received this CNN e-mail this morning: Pending home sales in April rose 6.3%, from March, but fell 13.1% from last year, according to a Realtor trade group. Not bad. It might even be fair to say (emphasis: might) that the real estate market is on the long road back to something resembling normalcy. The Associated Press's J.W. Elphinstone sanitized this pretty decent news, and I'll show you…

How does a former reporter for The Washington Post score a 2,200-word column on the mortgage mess in her former publication? Never mention personal responsibility. Kathleen Day took blame to a new level June 1 when she failed to mention personal responsibility even one time in her lengthy column. Day, now a spokeswoman for the left-wing Center for Responsible Lending, was a financial reporter…

Matching predictions from Reuters and Bloomberg, the government's Bureau of Economic Analysis told us this morning that the economy grew at an upwardly-revised annualized rate of 0.9%. As I've said frequently, this is nowhere near acceptable. But it sure as heck isn't a recession.Initial reaction to the news by the Associated Press's Jeannine Aversa was unfortunately predictable (bolds are mine…

As of late, the networks just can't get enough of bad housing news, seizing each opportunity to make a point how bad the American economy is. Each of the network news broadcasts on May 27 - ABC, CBS and NBC - took the news that home prices fell 14 percent in the first quarter of 2008, despite the news that new home sales rose an unexpected 3.3 percent in April from March, to portray the…

Paul Krugman is over in Berlin, and—surprise!—concludes that Europeans have things better figured out than we benighted Americans do. The gist of his Stranded in Suburbia in today's NY Times is that dense cities like Berlin, which offer good public transportation, are the solution to the high gasoline prices we are seemingly stuck with. Krugman contrasts Berlin and Atlanta:Greater Atlanta has…

It must be difficult every night for the media to find a fresh angle on the housing downturn. Perhaps the so-called "victim" angle is played out, so ABC's May 7 "Nightline" blamed the builders. The broadcast featured Maricopa, Ariz., a community near Phoenix where one in 10 homes is for sale. "While existing homes go begging for buyers, builders continued putting up new houses," said ABC…

The housing crisis strikes again ... sort of. The April 23 "CBS Evening News" found a way to twist the turmoil in the housing markets into something that's stretch even for them - a rise in the homeless population. "The Anticos are leaving their Bradenton, Fla. home because they have to," CBS correspondent Kelly Cobiella said. "The bank foreclosed on it in February after Sharon lost her job…

Today, talk-show heavyweight Rush Limbaugh picked up on a curious oversight by an AP business reporter whose negative spin in supposedly objective stories on the economy has frequently been noted here. In a Friday story about a survey of top financial company executives, the Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger wrote the following (bold is mine): Turmoil in credit and housing markets will be…

Rather than beating up on home lenders and accuse them of intentionally targeting borrowers who were in over the head, CNN took a more instructive approach. The April 14 edition of CNN's new business show, "Issue #1," showed that there are ways other than whining and moaning about how you were victimized by an unscrupulous lender. A Brooklyn, N.Y., homeowner on the brink of foreclosure sent a…

Congratulations to The Washington Post's Steven Pearlstein - being on the "economy is destined for calamity" bandwagon early. It has won you a Pulitzer Prize. Pearlstein was named as one of the recipients of the 2008 Pulitzer Prizes, for his columns on the nation's economic problems. Granted, Pearlstein called the fundamental problems with some of the shenanigans going on in the home mortgage…

Missed a few payments on your mortgage? About to be kicked out of that house you probably couldn't have afforded in the first place? Don't worry - ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson" has advice for you. The April 3 "World News" featured a Staten Island family that managed to purchase a $335,000 home, but with only an annual income of $30,000. "Karen and David Shearon, working people who…

In a pointed news release, the White House has punched back at the tendentious “White House Memo” by Sheryl Gay Stolberg that appeared on the front page of Thursday’s News York Times. Headlined “Setting the Record Straight: The New York Times Mistakes Its Own Blindness for Presidential ‘Invisibility’,” the White House press office notes even more factual flaws and omissions than reported…