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January 20, 2014- By Steven E. Greer
Everyone knows that “blogs” no longer have the same level of reliability as printed newspapers used to have decades ago (and those were not always accurate, to say the least). Most blogs now have low-paid junior people who simply aggregate stories from other sources without bothering to do the slightest amount of fact checking.
With that in mind, we spotted something so egregious, so exemplary of this modern blog-laziness problem, that it is worthy of reporting.
The real estate blog called the Real Deal posted today a story with the headline, “Tenants of LeFrak-owned building mull suits over repairs, heat“. They went on to write, ” Tenants at the complex filed a lawsuit in 2012 over a ban on certain dog breeds and a pet-ownership fee. Later that year, the Gateway removed almost every restriction on dogs at the complex.”.
The Real Deal was simply referencing an article from Curbed in their “reporting”. Laughably, Curbed was, in turn, simply referencing an article in Downtown Express, which was inaccurate (i.e. Mr. Plaskin and the BPCdogs did not prevent new restrictions against pit bulls and other breeds from taking effect). Therefore, the Real Deal story was the topmost layer of a three-layered pile of dog poop, so to speak.
We called the Real Deal crack “editorial” team to try to help them. One woman retaliated by saying, “That is how pick-ups work”, and hung up. We called back, and another woman refused to even answer whether she received an email we sent. We called a third time, and a man defended his colleagues. (Nowhere on the Real Deal website is the contact information for the Editor, Stuart Elliott.)
Of all of the forms of “news blogs”, real estate venues are among the least reliable, being almost as bad as celebrity gossip sites. Real estate blogs are often paid by the companies trying to sell apartments, and intentionally propagate false rumors about some celebrity, like Leonardo DiCaprio seen shopping for an apartment at some building where sales are slow.
The lesson is: never trust what you read on a real estate blog without double checking.