Los Angeles

[JustSomeGuy]

  I know of one couple that did a strategic foreclosure but were able to buy again not long after because the couple kept their finances separate. They bought under the clean credit of the partner who was not foreclosed on. While they were being foreclosed on and living without paying a mortgage, they were able to save money towards a down payment on a new place. These would be boomerang buyers who boomeranged a couple of years ago because they planned out their boomerang.

[trying_to_buy]

Today's Press Enterprise had a front page article on this today. Seems a little bit wrong to me...2 years since their strategic default and these people are buying with a VA loan with no money down.

[buyinghouse]

We had a question in the Bay Area's forum about that. This lady was telling us she had defaulted a year ago. She had a nice score on the high 700's if I am not wrong. She wanted to know if it was time to buy.

   Then, I have the story of his lady which with some efforts bought a small house with a small cottage on the back. She took down the house, used money from her sons, built this huge house worth $700K when done and she refinanced it to $1M.

  She stopped paying the mortgage 6 months ago. She rents the second floor to other people, plus, she rents the cottage. Her monthly payments I think but not sure were $3,600+-, then you add $1,200 for the second floor plus another $1,000 for the cottage. She says she has a realtor helping her (with the help of lawyers) to either lower the principal or get her the house "for free" because the first loan was sold to the bank that's is getting the payments, she considers that not to be fair? That's why, lawyers and realtor are going to get her a free house, Jesus!

[GEAH]

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stop_bailouts wrote:

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GEAH wrote:

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stop_bailouts wrote:

Oh, it's a "feature", so that means you don't have to be honest, then? Silly me - here I was thinking good journalism entailed researching a topic and then writing an article, not writing the article and then looking for quotes to back up what you already concluded. What if the interviews don't go the way you expected them to? I guess you just make something up? Wouldn't want to make the editor angry now, would we?

I'm curious - in what section of the newspaper do the "features" appear, and how are they differentiated from "regular" articles? And where does the disclaimer appear letting the readers know that the story was concocted ahead of time and isn't to be taken seriously?

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It's not inherently honest or dishonest. It's about telling a particular story. 

If you think a story on a Latino hockey player will be interesting, you put out feelers for Latino hockey players. It doesn't mean there aren't white hockey players.

If you think a story about someone who commutes a long way to work will be interesting, you try to find someone who drives 100 miles to work. It doesn't discount the existence of people who drive 3 miles to work.

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Bad analogy. "Latino hockey players" is a TOPIC. "Commuting long distances" is a TOPIC. Those are not conclusions. I agree - if you want to do a story about boomerang buyers, you put out feelers for boomerang buyers. That is not the point of contention. The point of contention is the pronouncement that it will be "a hopeful piece, about redemption and recovery". How do they know the situation is hopeful and redeeming if they haven't even found the people they're going to talk to yet?

A better analogy would be if you announced that you were going to write a story about how Latino hockey players commit more fouls than white hockey players, except that you hadn't actually done any research yet to ascertain whether that was even true.

Get it yet?

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Oh, yes, I get it, though you wouldn't like what I get.

How wanting to do a feature story about a child of illegal aliens living in a high crime area, starts off in gangs, but ends up getting out and becoming a valedictorian and going to college?

You know someone like that is out there, so you look for that person to tell the story.

There is zero wrong with that.