Fired real estate reporter: prima donna or martyr to the cause?
Former Bend Bulletin real estate reporter David Fisher went out with a bang—and maybe with a lot more sympathy than he deserves.
Fisher's firing from the Oregon newspaper after protesting cuts in his February 26, 2008 article "Housing forecast: It'll only get better" made the local blogs, always hyper-alert to signs of real estate industry conspiracy; a Bend alternative publication, The Source Weekly, which I'm sure was pleased to tweak the nose of the local mainstream daily; Oregon Public Radio, which declared "Bend Media Feel Pressure From Declining Real Estate Industry" solely on Fisher's say-so; Inman News, where I learned of this tempest in a teapot; and for all I know the story will show up tonight on the network news or, more likely, on some network's primetime soap opera like 60 Minutes or Dateline.
After reading "It'll only get better" and sampling Fisher's previous real estate coverage for the Bulletin, I can only wonder what all the fuss is about. But I won't wonder long. I know that a large portion of the Internet audience lives for proof that "they're lying again". And I understand that any fired employee is anxious to tell his side of the story, and anxious to look good telling it, particularly if he wants to stay in that line of work. Throw in the First Amendment and perhaps vague memories of Woodward and Bernstein and you have a story that any conspiracy theorist would be proud to run up the flagpole and salute.
The facts of the cause célèbre seem simple, at least to a point. David Fisher, intrepid Bulletin real estate reporter of two years standing, is sent to cover an annual get-together of the Bend real estate community. Now, the thought of attending a function like this makes my stomach hurt, and I'm a real estate agent. The real estate market in the bustling burg of Bend is slumping, and what the boys and girls want is Pep! and Vision! They get it, and then some, from local Go-Getter! and real estate appraiser Dana Bratton, who's a fixture at these fun-drenched events. Bratton slings them a stirring address that, at least as Fisher quotes it, leaps from the pages of the Bulletin like one of the more lurid passages from Babbitt.
I strongly suspect that Bratton's ringing declarations of just-around-the-corner real estate prosperity were said with tongue in cheek. I'm not sure; I've never been to Bend and, for all I know, Bend burgeons with Babbitt-style boosterism. Apparently Fisher wasn't sure either. He allows that Bratton starts "somewhat tongue-in-cheek" by predicting that the housing slump will end April 25 ("somewhat" tongue-in-cheek, David?) then gives us the following quote with a completely straight face:
[Buyers have] 60 days to make that great buy, and then they're onto us, and Bend is going to lead the nation out of this housing recession we're in. Why not? It's gonna start here, OK? So I say make the move—don't miss the boat.
Fisher dutifully notes the "cheers and applause" Bratton's light-hearted hyperbole receives, but the appraiser's "upbeat forecast " (and then some) leaves Fisher strangely unmoved. (I have this visual of him, sitting on a folding chair in the back, alone, scowling and scribbling furiously.) He salts his story with three "critical voices", turns it in, a job well done, and goes home.
The next morning he "woke up, got the day's paper, and almost spit out his coffee", according to a March 19 Oregon Public Radio report. What made him gag? The headline ("It'll only get better") plus the fact that two of the three quotes disputing this rosy scenario—or was it just some small-town businessperson's heavy-handed attempt at crowd-pleasing humor that was lost on a certain reporter, the outsider in this happy gathering by profession and temperament?—had been cut from the story.
His story. His beautiful story. Bye-bye Pulitzer.
Fisher may have been the only person in the room, including Bratton, to take Bratton's remarks seriously, which makes this farce all the more farcical. Perhaps Fisher was tripped up by his unfamiliarity with a sub-dialect of small businessperson-speak called real estate agent-ese, in this case spoken with a thick Middle American accent. How could a huge communication gap exist between a presumably intelligent reporter and the industry he covers? Perhaps it's the vast difference in age, mindset and life experience.
But it may also be due to a phenomenon I call "pajama journalism": the practice of covering the industry through infrequent, distanced and highly selective encounters. Journalism that can be done—whether it is or not—in pajamas, without leaving the spare bedroom. Like rehashing a press release. Or calling a handful of non-threatening and obliging sources. Or taking a quote off a Web site. Rarely does the average real estate reporter appear to have stepped outside his or her comfort zone. Rarely does the average real estate reporter appear to have actually gone out and rubbed shoulders with the great sweaty mass of real estate agents.
Maybe no one tells reporters they should. Or maybe the Digital Age has made them forget what shoe leather is for. But suddenly thrust the average real estate reporter into a noisy and unfamiliar setting teeming with agents hell-bent on acting like Warren G. Harding is still in office, and don't be surprised if there's gross miscommunication and serious culture shock.
"The horror! The horror!"
What happens after "It'll only get better" hits the Bulletin is known in outline but not in detail. Fisher gets steamed and goes missing. OPR says "Fisher was so angered by the changes that he called in sick to work for two days". The Source Weekly, on the other hand, quotes from an email Fisher sent to the Bulletin's HR department: "He didn't claim to be sick, but wanted time to cool down before confronting [Business Editor John] Stearns about the butchered story and asking to be transferred to a different beat where he could cover the news 'without what I perceived to be the editors' emotional desire to slant coverage of the real estate market'".
Whew! So it's Fisher's editors who were "emotional"?
In the email Fisher said he told Stearns [his editor and immediate supervisor] "that the editing of the Feb. 26 story was part of a 'pattern of editing that included misleading headlines, sources being banned from my coverage, story ideas getting spiked, and odd pre-story cajoling, all of which seemed designed by the executive editor to generate more favorable coverage of the local real estate market than I have thought was best in the two years I have been assigned to cover it...the utter hack job that was done on my Feb. 26 story had led me to conclude that the paper was not willing to cover the industry as honestly as it should".
Note that Fisher has conspicuously identified himself to his boss, and to his boss' boss, as an unhappy camper and that, furthermore, he firmly believes that his boss, and his boss' boss, could learn a few things about journalistic integrity from him, David Fisher, Bend real estate reporter of two years tenure.
What followed next is not surprising.
Fisher "confronts" his boss, Stearns, who talks it over with his boss, Executive Editor John Costa. Five days later, Fisher is fired. You can almost hear the conversation Stearns and Costa have: "If this guy thinks he's so hot..."
What mystifies me, and seems to undercut the credibility of Fisher's claims, is that "It'll only get better" is a well-balanced job of reporting (or editing). Sure, after all you've heard about how pro-real estate the article supposedly is, you'd expect a real estate agent to lay on the praise. But let me lay on a few quotes that are lifted directly from that "slanted" article:
Searching the Internet turned up several more examples of Fisher's real estate coverage for the Bulletin. Remember, this is real estate coverage for a newspaper that Fisher accuses of being "not willing to cover the industry as honestly as it should":
An article from 2006 headlined "Home sales slip in region" and, if that isn't enough to set the Bend real estate community's teeth on edge, a sub-head that informs readers that "October sales in Bend down 59 percent from '05". "Prices hold steady", yes, but "price reductions are the rule of the day for homes that have not sold yet, an indication that sales prices may be on their way down".
Another article, apparently from 2007, covering a new development of inexpensive homes. "Whether buyers will buy remains to be seen: At the moment, they're not snapping up Bend houses very quickly at any price."
And another recent article, which starts "Central Oregon home sales are coming off of one of their worst winters in a decade..." "[Builders] just want to unload as much inventory as they can, in whatever way they can."
These are not statements to gladden the heart of the typical real estate agent. So I can well believe Bulletin Executive Editor John Costa's assertion, quoted in Inman, that "Last fall we had letters to the editor saying the belief of the industry in this town is (that coverage) is far too negative on them..." Costa claims that "he had even written a column in support of Fisher's coverage". Confirming the industry's unhappiness is an Inman quote from the government affairs director for the Central Oregon Association of Realtors, who says that "there were concerns—actually, significant concerns—with how the housing market was portrayed in the local newspaper" which is, you guessed it, the Bulletin, the Bend newspaper Fisher seems to think is in bed with the real estate industry.
Sounds like a lovers' quarrel.
Despite Costa's claim that "he has not handled a single request for a real estate professional or builder to can a story or produce a news story", I would be the last to deny that the real estate industry doesn't try to manage the news. Every industry does, and with the clear conscience of the pure of heart. And when you see how much real estate advertising runs in the average local newspaper, you see also how much leverage the industry can have. It's a short-sighted and ultimately self-defeating habit, because it makes the conspiracy theories plausible. But when you see how badly the average reporter mucks up the facts when he strays from his script and tries to get the "real story" on real estate, you understand why the industry reacts with such fury.
So I have great admiration for an editor like John Costa who produces what I think is exemplary real estate coverage, coverage that doesn't kowtow to the lunatic fringe on either edge of the audience: the knee-jerk real estate boosters, and the it-all-stinks-of-corruption conspiracy theorists.
Which leaves us with one David Fisher, former Bulletin real estate reporter and current fifteen-minute celeb who, for reasons best known to himself, recently hurled himself headlong into a job-demolishing meltdown. Let me construct an elaborate and highly speculative scenario which may or may not be accurate and which may or may not explain what happened.
Fisher finds himself stuck—no, that's a pejorative word—firmly ensconced (but not too firmly) as a reporter (a job description on the endangered species list) for a small-town newspaper (with dwindling market penetration, according to Bend scuttlebutt) in what seems to be an entry-level position (real estate is apparently a beat few established reporters want) covering an industry he doesn't particularly know or care for, rife with back-slapping Central Oregonian George F. Babbitts he despises. He's sensitive (he writes, doesn't he?), he's terribly earnest and perhaps a trifle humorless and self-important, which would make him kith and kin to the bubbleheads now posting tear-stained tributes to his reporting. One fateful morning (and somehow I know it was a bright and early morning meeting) he inadvertently strays outside his comfort zone and witnesses an annual industry mating ritual that hits him right between the eyes with the unrestrained impact of a fraternal order debauch—and something snaps.
He may not have heard it snap. His editors did.
I don't know if this is what happened, and my apologies to David Fisher if I got it wrong.
But if Fisher can't find another newspaper reporting job, I know a medium he might want to explore. One where conspiracy is ruthlessly exposed—even when it's not there—without fear of rebuke. One where you can fearlessly speak the truth, even if you and truth haven't been properly introduced. One where a meltdown can launch a career rather than stall it. One where no editor can butcher your story in the pusillanimous pursuit of that old man's cop-out, "balance". One where—and it's funny how this works—you have zero credibility with thoughtful readers, assuming that the feels-so-good partisanship of the Internet hasn't wiped them out.
In the meantime, conspiracy buffs, say hello your new martyr.