New Look! New Focus! Bigger Teeth!
Scene: A richly paneled conference room at Mega Financial Magazine’s headquarters, high atop Mount Olympus, sometime in 2002. Senior editors, subdued, talk quietly among themselves. Managing Editor strides in briskly and begins to address them.
“You all know why we’re here. The investing public thinks we covered the stock market like Wall Street shills. We’ve tried getting our readers back with potshots at the securities industry, but it’s gone from bad to worse: no one cares now. We just piss off our advertisers. People are still bailing from the stock market, our circulation is still in the tank. We need another hot market to cover.
"Brace yourselves, but I think that market is real estate.
(Groans and catcalls.)
"Yes, I know, real estate is for punks. But desperate times call for desperate measures. Real estate is going up as fast as stocks crash. But I think this housing boom will last about as long as hula hoops, so I won’t ruin our clubby atmosphere by bringing in a real estate writer. Besides, the idea isn’t to cover real estate. The idea is to get our credibility back with a new look, a new focus, a new attitude: ‘The Industry is the Enemy’. Instead of climbing into bed with them, this time we’ll climb all over them.
“That’s where you financial writers come in. I'll need one of you to step forward, someone who thinks his or her career could use a jump start. (A lengthy pause.) Surely someone here must be willing to sell his soul for a byline!”
A hand shoots up.
“Me, sir! Pick me!”
“Whipsnade, eh? Know anything about real estate?”
“Yes, sir. I live in one.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter. I won’t ask you for any heavy lifting, just some light hatchet work. All the same, I owe it to our readers to make sure you’re qualified to give them financial—uh, real estate—advice.”
“Shoot, sir.”
“Do you worship at the altar of the all-knowing, all-seeing, woolly Ph.D. economist?”
“I bear his mark, sir. Who knows an industry better than the people who’ve never been near it? Keeps 'em pure and simple. We’re proof of that.”
“Will you present their studies to our readers without question, but only if they’ve been reviewed by other woolly Ph.D. economists, and only if they don’t get in the way of a good story?”
“You can depend on it, sir. I wouldn’t know how to check their methodology anyway.”
“Splendid! Let’s continue. Do you have the distinct impression that real estate is populated with greedy sleazeballs, and that you could do their job far better in the unlikely and highly distasteful event that you ever found yourself standing in their two-tone wingtips?”
“Yes! Yes!”
“And finally, Whipsnade, when you do talk to the real estate industry, will you promise to talk only to the people on its margins, because their marginality keeps them from being threatening, and to ignore the mainstream players?”
“Scout’s honor, sir. The public needs to know about fresh approaches, no matter how wacky they are. I won’t know the difference and I won’t care, because I think the entire industry is useless. The ones who charge less are just less useless.”
“Tell me, Whipsnade. You’ll be covering an industry you know nothing about. You’ll risk looking like a dangerous idiot to hundreds of thousands of readers. You’ll be taking adversarial positions, and in your ignorance you may well dump on the wrong people. Doesn't any of this worry you?”
“Not a bit, sir, if it doesn’t worry you. You’re the risk-taker, sir. Golly, if our readers find out I’m just coasting, they’ll wonder about the rest of our reporting. We’ll lose all our credibility. But I’ll risk it if you will. It’s a no-brainer: people want to trust us, and they don’t trust the real estate industry. Besides, this real estate stuff is just like the financial markets, only lots more simple. Everyone knows it’s just a bunch of guys in loud sports coats ripping off consumers—no nuances to it at all. I feel like an expert already, sir.
“We’re on the same page, Whipsnade. You’re a crusader now. By golly, you're a muckraker. You don’t have to be right, just loud and self-righteous! Now get out there and sling me some mud!”