It’s common for journalists to consider the literal four-letter word “spin,” to be more akin to one of the metaphorical, more offensive, George Carlin-esque “four-letter words.”
In our neverending quest for The Truth, in its most unvarnished, purest form, we tend to despise the fine art of spinning honest facts to suit what we think are dishonest or manipulative motives. In our admittedly ideal world, facts, figures, statements and statistics should be relayed with an absolute minimum amount of embellishment or perspective.
Like a finely prepared meal, journalists like to think that the best stories are those prepared simply and honestly, with a minimum of ingredients, in order to allow the true nature of a story’s “flavors” to shine through on their own.
For example, we recently received what was, really, a fairly innocuous press release from the National Foundation for Credit Counseling touting results from its latest consumer poll.
The NFCC’s survey found that approximately one in four respondents (23 percent) said that accepting foreclosure is justifiable if their property is worth less than what is owed upon it. In other words, a quarter of those surveyed said it was OK to walk away from an underwater mortgage.
On its own, this particular survey finding stands, absent any spin, as a fair litmus test of consumer sentiment.
But of course, there’s always some spin.
In this case, the NFCC, in a rather subtle way, altered the context of this fact by reporting that “only” 23 percent of respondents thought it was OK to walk away from a troubled mortgage. Further, the organization also reported that a full 15 percent of respondents said there was no justifiable reason, ever, to walk away from an underwater loan – as if 15 percent was an astonishingly high number, indicative of the high regard in which national homeowners hold their mortgage obligations.
To the NFCC, these findings indicated that “Americans continue to prioritize their obligation to service their mortgage loan, and this is indeed good news for homeowners, mortgage lenders and the housing market overall.”
How nice.
But show the same numbers to said bankers or mortgage lenders, and we feel confident they would reach a drastically different conclusion.
Imagine the consternation in a bank boardroom upon realizing that fully one in four of their home borrowers might be prepared to simply stop payments. Do you think telling them that “only” 15 percent of their borrowers would never consider walking away from their mortgage might offer some comfort? Flipping, (ahem, or spinning) that stat around reinforces the point – 85 percent of borrowers can imagine at least one circumstance where walking away might be OK.
Truly, the numbers themselves in this case don’t lie. The survey findings, in the now infamous parlance of New England Patriots Head Coach Bill Belichick (himself a master of spin), are what they are.
It’s in putting those numbers into some kind of context where things get tricky, and where we journalists like to think we earn our stripes (if not our money). On their own, both the NFCC’s published take on the numbers – “What a low figure!” – and bankers’ own presumed reactions – “A quarter of our clients might stop paying us!” – are honest and true.
And each is also loaded with spin.
It’s up to us, then, to do our best to present both sides equally, to let the readers we truly respect make up their own minds, absent any prodding one way or another from our end.
It’s a difficult task, to be sure, and a thankless one at times. But rather than mutter a four-letter word under our breath in reporting the facts, we choose to present them in the best way we know how – cleanly and honestly and with a minimum of filler and garnish.
It’s up to you to tell us if you like the resulting “meal.”
