JUNE 2012 |
www.opp.org.uk WORDS | John Howell
NEWS
NEWS ANALYSIS | 13 Getting the right info
The crisis around the single European currency has dominated the news agenda over the last month, not just industry-wide but across the globe. Yet with this and many other stories often subject to erronous and confl icting reports, it is often diffi cult to separate the wheat from the chaff. Here, OPP’s new editor John Howell explains how we can help...
here is no doubt what the main news story has been this month. Every newspaper, magazine and web posting has been full of stories, good, bad or indifferent, about the Euro. This is a subject that is going to be of lasting and vital interest to the whole world and so it seems very parochial to look at it simply from the point of view of the overseas property industry. Yet this is exactly what we have done in the fi rst of our “Three Wise (Wo)men” columns: see pages 42 and 43. There are three reasons for this. People in the international property industry are, naturally, concerned about how this mega-crisis is likely to impact upon them personally. Looking at a very small part of a very big problem can, sometimes, cast light upon the whole: a little like eating an elephant one bite at a time. And, of course, there is the very practical reason that when this article was commissioned two or three weeks ago the position seemed not to be moving quite as quickly or quite as dramatically as has proved to be the case.
T By the time you read these words,
the fi rst stage of this crisis may well have played out. My guess is that, despite a lot of huffi ng and puffi ng by
the politicians, Greece will default and leave the Euro. But the point is that that is only a guess. This story has had so many twists and turns that nothing would surprise me. Perhaps the Greeks will fi nd €500 billion in gold bars that they had forgotten about.
One thing that is quite sure is that we will not be seeing the end of this story
“To put stories into context you will see that we publish news with additional commentary”
for months or even years to come. In the absence of decisive political action this is likely to be a slow and very bloody retreat. Turning to the rest of the news, I have been struck again and again this month by how so many stories seem to confl ict with other stories written only the day before. “Sales in such a country are up 3.2% compared with last year”, says Mr A. “No they are not”, says Mr B, “They are down 1.9%”. To an extent this has always happened but the problem seems particularly striking at
the moment. It draws our attention to two important questions: how do you assess the reliability of any news story and how do you put it in context. To help put news stories in context, you will see that more and more of the stories we publish will also contain some OPP comment on the story. Once again, we hope that you will fi nd this useful. Once again, please let us know. A further reason that leads to
contradictions between news stories is that they are often based on different data sets gathered over different periods of time. I find this particularly frustrating. To make matters worse, most of the data is very short term. Any information about any event is only of any real use if it shows a trend. I am more interested, for example, in what has happened to the exchange rate between the US dollar and the euro over the last ten years than I am with an hour by hour breakdown over the last day. If you feel the same, you will see increasing amounts of long term data published in the data center on
www.opp-connect.com. Over the next few months, it should grow into a really useful resource for those wanting to see the news in context.
Rating global news
To help assess the reliability of any news story, here at OPP we will be running an experiment in the news items we publish on our website
www.opp-connect.com. Starting this month, we will give each of them a rating based on the credibility of the source and the credibility of the story itself. The reliabilty of the source of the story is rated between A (history of complete reliability) to E (his- tory of invalid information), with F reserved for a source without sufficient history to establish a reli- ability level.
Avoiding confusion | OPP will help to keep you on the right path by separating the real news from the spin in the industry
The reliability of the informa- tion content is rated between 1 (confirmed) to 5 (improbable) with 6 reserved for information the reliability of which cannot be evaluated. In addition, stories OPP believes are particularly impor- tant will be rated with an *. For example: *A1: a particularly important piece of information from a reliable source and indepedently confirmed. *F6: A particularly important piece of information from a new source without a reputation and where the information itself is of unknown validity. E5: An unimportant and inconsist- ent or illogical piece of information from a known liar. C1: An unimportant piece of information, confirmed by another source but from a poor source. We hope you find this way of collating and assessing the vast amount of industry news out there useful. Let us know what you think by emailing
john.howell@opp.org.uk
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