Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/518853
JUNE 2015 22 THE JOURNAL Has There Ever Been A Worse Piece Of Journalism Than "Warren Buffet's Mobile Home Empire Preys On The Poor"? BY FRANK ROLFE COMMUNITY CONSULTANT I've been in the manufactured home commu- nity business for 20 years. I've read many mis- guided articles from a plethora of sources, but none at the level of absurdity of The Center for Public Integrity and The Seattle Times' "Warren Buffet's Mobile Home Empire Preys on the Poor". It's a landmark piece of sensationalism, igno- rance, bad journalism, and just plain hypocrisy. Misleading premise and title This is an article about the plight of a handful of lower-income families that have financial prob- lems. Somehow, the author has loosely compiled these random tales into one over-reaching head- line that has no basis in fact. The only thing that all these families share is that they have financial problems. But those problems have nothing to do with Warren Buffet or manufactured homes. In- stead, they revolve around the personal decisions of a small group of shoppers, and a depressed U.S. economy that has not shown any signs of life in almost a decade. The sub-title to the article is "Billionaire profits at every step from building to selling to high cost lending". Wait a minute? Is it illegal in th e U.S. to make a profit or run a busi- ness with vertical integration? Doesn't Apple computer – a media darling – fit this same profile? Even the subtitle doesn't support the actual title of the article! Poorly researched Clayton and its subsidiaries are a huge com- pany. They build thousands of homes per year, and hold the financing on hundreds of thousands of loans. But the article uses as its sources 1) "for- mer dealers" 2) "more than a dozen customers" and 3) "100 loan documents". Let's look at that statistically. Assuming that Clayton has 500,000 customers, those 112 sources represent .000224% of their clients. Since when does a sampling that small represent any scientific research or effort? If I called on 112 current customers and ex-employ- ees of the newspaper, and asked them about The Seattle Times, it would be funny to see the reac- tions and to then link them together into an arti- cle. The headline would probably be "The Seattle Times misses their home deliveries frequently, is run by communists, gets ink on my tablecloth, makes for poor toilet paper, is managed by space aliens, and won't gi ve me the quarter back that the machine ate". If you're trying to pretend to do real journalism, at least gather enough informa- tion to make valid statements without puffery. The sampling used in this article is silly. The Center of Public Integrity is a scandal unto itself The Seattle Times is at least a real newspaper. But what is the Center of Public Integrity, the co- author of the article? Well, some quick internet research shows that it certainly has no business writing articles about questionable business ethics. The funding for this non-profit is scandalous, and the group has been the brunt of many articles questioning its motives and existence. Here's a tidbit from Wikipedia: CPI has been criticized for accepting large funds from George Soros, a progressive-liberal billionaire and critic of the Bush administra- tion. The web site of one of Soros' organizations, the Open Society Institute, discloses four grants to the CPI, all made before George W. Bush's entry into the 2004 presidential contest. They are: • A $72,400 one-year grant in 2000 support- ing "an investigative journalism series on prose- cutorial misconduct. • A $75,000 one-year grant in 2001 support- ing "an examination of wrongful convictions re- sulting from prosecutorial misconduct. • A $100,000 one-year grant in 2002 "to in- vestigate the political spending of the telecommu- nications industry on the federal, state and local levels. • A $1 million three-year grant in 2002 "to support the Global Access Project. So I guess the real question is "who paid to write a negative article on Warren Buffet?" I can think of several possibilities, can't you? For more scandal related to CPI, simply Google up the topic. You'll see articles from the New York Times and The Los Angeles Times on the subject. None of it is good. Here's the truth about the customers used in the article All of the individuals and families named in the article share the same basic story. They have very low incomes. They have virtually no savings. They refuse to admit that they were living beyond their means and that they have full personal ac- countability for their decisions. Beyond that, the only other similarity is that they accidentally were customers of Clayton, but it could have been Fleetwood or any other manufacturer, and Bank of America or any other lender. The stories would have all had the same ending regardless of the home builder or lender. If you borrow money and don't honor your commitments, you lose your property. It's not any more complicated than that. This is true for every business in America that financ es their customers, from autos, to RVs, to refrigerators. Articles such as this, that pretend that the consumer is not accountable for their own actions, insult the intelligence of the 99% of Americans who earn incomes and pay their bills and live within their means. I know this is a sore topic for liberal publications, but it needs to be discussed. Why Buffet is actually the biggest friend that the "poor" have Around 30% of U.S. households earn $30,000 or less and have bad credit. Nobody wants to lend to this group. And they are completely shunned by the greater single-family home industry as being undesirable. So who is the only source of home ownership for this group? That's right, the man- ufactured home manufacturers, of which Clayton is the largest. Without Clayton, about 30% of the U.S. population can forget anything but Class B and Class C apartment living, or shacking up with their parents or grandparents. Buffet should be giving accolades and a humanitarian award, and not a poorly written article with a political agenda. Just ask the 99.999% of Clayton customers who were never interviewed. Conclusion Bad journalism needs to be avoided. Really, really bad journalism needs to be called out for its failings and beaten down, as it serves to confuse and pollute the minds of the American public. The article on Buffet and Clayton was a scandal. The writers should be held accountable for an absurd slam piece that has no basis in fact. If I subscribed to the Seattle Times, I'd cancel my \ 23