You’re in a grocery store, and bump into someone by mistake. Perhaps you did not see them. Whatever the case may be, it’s common courtesy to say, “pardon me.” That’s what a responsible lady or a gentleman does.
When you write, when you’re publishing, mistakes happen. I’ve seen typos on major media websites, sometimes even in a very brief headline. There was a college that had a new logo designed with only a few words, yet it had a typo that got past scores of people into print.
My personal favorite is the one word billboard, below. Not long after we published this, it was changed, but it sat that way on I4 going into Tampa for months. Do you think a message emailed to the sign company linking the picture of their mistake was a motivation for them making the correction needed?
As my Badger state friends say, “You Betcha.”
There are social and professional standards, and when a mistake is made, you acknowledge it, and correct it as best you can.
Mainstream Media and Trade Media
Sharyl Attkisson is journalist who still lives up to that noble calling, and I respectfully follow her professional work. She produced this useful chart, shown here below under fair use guidelines.
Where does the media you follow track on the ‘left wing vs. right wing’ scale? Personally, media I get/check fall on both sides of the above…but maybe a bit more on the right than left.
For the record, manufactured housing ought to be a non-partisan issue. From the retiree or modest wage earner to the middle class or frugal millionaires, having quality, affordable homes just makes good sense.
Back to the Media…
To show you how out-of-whack so much of the media is, the big news for days has been that man hauled off the overbooked Republic Airline plane, which was operating under United Airlines. Was that Sensational? Yes.
But how does that compare in importance to the dozens who died and over a hundred wounded in a Coptic Christian Church in Egypt, victims of a terror bombing by ISIS on Palm Sunday?
How low can media go that such an important incident is a mere blip in the news?
There are terror attacks picking up at a feverish pace in Europe, Africa, Russia, Asia, and the Americas. Even dictatorial communist China is fearing the potential for terrorism, and they’re taking steps to try to prevent radical Islamic terrorism in their land.
Not being PC doesn’t bother the Chinese government.
The Trump Administration
I applaud President Trump for making rapid progress in the Washington DC Swamp on such diverse realms as:
- securing our borders,
- making hundreds of arrests weekly of criminal illegals,
- Keystone pipeline okayed,
- regulatory freezes and roll backs started,
- boosting economic activity, business, and consumer confidence,
- jobs,
- sending a strong message to not just Syria, but also to Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea with his Tomahawk missile attack. That strike was executed so rapidly and effectively that a former Obama administration team member commented that they could never have pulled the same thing off as quickly as the military and Team Trump did.
As important, I congratulate and encourage the president and his team for not knuckling under to the ‘terror’ – at least to so many politicos – of mainstream media scrutiny, bias and attacks.
Who are those media types who focus for hours and days on the errant behavior of a flight crew and airport cops, vs. the far more important news of spreading international terror, and stopping jihadist attacks from occurring in the U.S.? Or where is the balance that shows the economic progress already being made?
While I absolutely respect the media’s right to question, investigate and report – we are media too – we must all admit that we’re living in an era of strong media bias, as Attkisson’s chart above illustrates. We’ve returned as a society to a modern version of the yellow journalism of a century ago.
The CFPB’s constitutionality, terror, economy, jobs, security, activist jurists – these are all among the reasons why Justice Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation was so important. Some of these cases will end up on the Supreme Court.
Let me hereby encourage the president to consider making history in a way that FDR never did, by packing the high court, see this link here.
A Subset of American Society
Stating the obvious, our industry is a subset of society at large.
We are watching others in and out of media who day-by-day errantly frame what should be our industry’s powerful message. There are elements within and outside of our industry that are either ignorant, or to some degree, complicit in causing grave harm to thousands of our hard working, well-meaning industry’s peers, along with the millions that we do and can serve.
Manufactured homes are the proven free market solution to the affordable housing needed by millions today. We are also the solution to subsidized housing that will break the budgets of federal, state and local officials – see this link here.
Pardon the brief flash of pride, but we are right about the issues impacting manufactured housing and how we could better benefit society the vast majority of the time. We study the issues, and take a position according to a prudent application of justice to the circumstances.
For example. With the industry bogged down in DC for years on numerous issues, we dared support Donald Trump for President editorially – early and often – when it wasn’t politically correct to do so! Some would say that cost us, but we did it anyway – because his pro-business, pro-growth, pro-jobs, reducing regulations, cutting taxes etc. platform and slogans were and are the right thing for our nation.
Again, let’s note that our industry is a subset of the nation. Doing right by the nation, does right by our industry too. “America First.”
Getting it Wrong…
But there are times when we as a pro-industry trade publisher get it wrong. When we do, we are accountable, just as we hold others to account. This week, a group of readers called us to account for a less than ideally handled story featured in our last emailed news update.
- We reviewed the matter internally.
- We made a correction.
- We hopefully have all learned from the incident.
Pardon the less-than-perfect first draft as published, and we thank those who brought it to our attention, so we could make the adjustments.
“It’s Complicated”
My truly better half is right. This industry, and politics, “it’s complicated.”
But we have much to be grateful for – and as we are in the week of Passover for Jews, and Holy Week for Christians, we take our ‘mea culpas‘ more seriously.
Next week, we will look anew at some hot issues that harm our industry, millions of Americans and our nation. We will look to see what can be done about those upcoming matters.
Until then, we thank you – our readers – for rewarding us with amazingly rapid growth. We keep reaching more industry pros, while more investors, public officials, academics, media, and others researching the industry follow our news. Today, manufactured housing is a “boutique” industry, but it ought to be mainstream housing.
That said, more will be on our site today, than attended the Louisville, Tunica and Las Vegas industry trade shows combined.
We thank our sponsors and supporters – most are visible, via banner ads, while some prefer to support us from ‘behind the scenes’ – for hanging with us when we enter into controversial realms. While we are independent, we take many perspectives into consideration before we publish. Our goal? The truth well told, shared in ways that can spotlight challenges and celebrate industry successes.
We must define ourselves as an industry, we must police our own as an industry, and not let the uninformed or malicious – within or outside of our great industry’s ranks – define us.
The truth well told is powerful. And this week, above all other weeks of the year, we should humbly recall how living the Truth will set us free. ##
(Image credits are as shown above, those not shown are credited to MHProNews.com.)
By L. A. ‘Tony’ Kovach,
publisher and marketing-sales-management industry consultant.
