The Rent Roll with Jay Parsons EP#42 Hiten Samtani | The Media & Rental Housing
Shift in Housing Media Narrative
- Media coverage has shifted from landlord business perspectives to mostly consumer-focused narratives.
- This shift often creates a perception of landlords as solely profit-driven and dismisses the business realities of housing.
The Lost Art of Beat Reporting and Nuanced Real Estate Coverage
Hiten Samtani spotlights the decline of specialized beat reporting in commercial real estate, emphasizing the negative impact of high journalist turnover and lack of deep industry understanding.
He notes the media's tendency toward "both-sidedism," which often results in misleading narratives that fail to convey the nuanced realities, such as in rent control coverage. Real estate journalists frequently focus on sensational, flashpoint stories that distort broader market realities.
To combat this, Samtani advises industry professionals to engage consistently and respectfully with media, developing clear, data-driven messaging over time. He also stresses the importance of holding bad actors accountable within the industry to improve public perception and calls for media coverage that prioritizes fairness and accuracy over false equivalency.
Loss of Expert Beat Reporters
- Newsrooms often lack dedicated commercial real estate beat reporters with deep expertise.
- This creates diluted and superficial coverage, missing nuanced understanding of the industry.