Exclusive: Newspapers are great
One of the hardest things about editing a daily newspaper must be decisions about news values. Which stories are of most interest to readers? What news is it most important to tell when you’ve limited space available?
It must have been a tough decision, for instance, for the team at the Saturday edition of Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph to leave the latest news on the mysterious disappearance of Flight MH370 all the way back on page 35.
Still, it’s completely understandable, once you see the big exclusive on page 33, complete with the bold headline “Print and web house ads a winning combo.”
Journalist Brendan Wong begins his scoop with one of those intros they may be teaching in J-school for years to come: “Sydney home sellers can expect to add more than $120,000 to the sale price of their property by using print advertising during their open house campaign, new research has revealed.”
And Wong’s managed to pull in an impeccable source to comment on the big story, somehow persuading the usually shy Tom Panos, News Corp’s general manager of real estate sales to break his silence and reveal: “Print works in combination, not in isolation. Many times, print is the first touchpoint with a buyer and takes the buyer to the digital space to look at a floor plan or more images of the property.”
And the hard-hitting revelations from Mr Panos continue: “The passive and aspirational buyer is not sitting on websites regularly because they’re not an active buyer, but when they do buy, they generally buy emotionally and pay a higher price.”
This well sourced piece of journalistic craft goes further, with the newspaper having identified happy house buyers. According to the caption: “Juliet and James Dewar are delighted with the price they got through print advertising.”
Luckily Mr Dewar is also able to offer an explanation to readers of how newspapers work: “If people receive the paper at the door, they can pass it on to their friends.”
Yawn
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I don’t know whether it’s fair to be singling out the journalist here. Clearly, he’s been handed a shit sandwich, with instructions on how it is to be written.
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@NJK … Fair call. But it’s always been so. In the afternoon tabloid days we had to supply all sorts of crap to support one certain paper’s bingo promotions. It reached the embarrassing stage where we were instructed to ask visiting celebs we interviewed to pose for pics with the bingo cards! I have not so fond memories of Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy suggest I stick said card up a certain part of my anatomy. Hah, those were the days!.
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At least online journalism would not stoop so low as to exploit their medium to sell property. Especially not WALLFUND.blog.com who rely on hard nosed copy.
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Why aren’t you guys getting scoops like this. TheirMumbrella
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As someone who subscribes to several real estate e-letters and blogs, this is the biggest pile of doggie do, ever!. Google can tell when people are going to buy/sell/relocate by the searches they do up to a year before.
Passive investors/buyers are on the web months, years out from making a decision, and NO they dont pay more cause they have seen the prices in their target area trend over time.
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Newspapers are doing themselves no favours with this rubbish . More and more they are loosing credibility with their readers. When I see either a Fairfax or News Ltd story about real estate I dont read it because I know it will be just hype.
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