George Allen / EducateMHC Blog Mobile Home & Land Lease Community Advocate & Expert

Blog Posting # 717. Copyright 5 December 2022. EducateMHC

Perspective. Land lease communities, previously manufactured home communities, and earlier, ‘mobile home parks’, comprise the real estate component of manufactured housing! EducateMHC is the online national advocate, realty asset class historian, trend spotter, education resource, and textbook supplier for land lease communities throughout North America! To input this blog and or connect with EducateMHC, telephone (317) 881-3815, email: gfa7156@aol.com or visit educatemhc.com

George Allen, CPM®Emeritus, MHM®Master, RV/MH Hall of Fame, & MHI Emeritus member


The Decline of Mainstream News Media


How do you get your news? Print media, cable & local television, radio, and or the internet? Where print media is concerned I’ve found a combination that ‘works’ for me. I read USA Today daily (despite its’ liberal slant) and a local rag (the Daily Journal), the New York Times (Gasp!) Sunday only, and the rapidly growing Epoch Times weekly. All this because our local state newspaper, the Indianapolis Star – besides its’ left-leaning political slant, has become a billing nightmare, charging extra when subscription invoices are paid by personal check instead of online, and more subscriber affronts. Reading USA Today and New York Times reminds me, with each and every issue, why I deplore the decline of mainstream media in society today. I think to myself: OK, then the truth must be 180 degrees different from what’s printed here!

Recently read a confirming – of my opinion – article on the decline of mainstream news media (a.k.a. MSM) in SALVO magazine. Titled ‘The Signaling Class’ by Denyse O’Leary, its’ subtitle laying the groundwork for what’s to follow: ‘Today’s Mainstream Media Exist to Disseminate Approved Thought’. Leading off, is a supporting collection of performance statistics worth knowing and noting:

“…CNN’s ratings are down 27 percent from last year, and MSNBC’s are down 23 percent. Print media have probably fared worse. A recent study showed, in the U.S., a country of 332 million people, no newspaper has a print circulation greater than one million. Only nine US newspapers today have more than 100,000 subscribers, and over a quarter have ceased to publish in the last 15 years.” In my subdivision neighborhood alone, among the 25 or so families I know well, only two of us even take (read) the daily newspaper!

“A related, more ominous decline is in public trust. In 2021, public trust in media, as surveyed by Gallup, plunged to the second lowest point ever recorded, only four percentage points above the all-time low in 2016. The US ranks last in 46 countries surveyed for trust in media.” Is this even a surprise, as MSM avoids reporting news like illegal immigrants flooding the US southern border, underutilization of national energy resources, and on and on?

“This year, Pew Research found that 65 percent of nearly 12,000 journalists surveyed felt they did a good job on the most important stories. But only 35 percent of the public agreed. Thirty percent is a pretty significant gap, and of course shows up in profitability. CNN’s profits, for example, are expected to dip below $1 billion for the first time since 2016. Newspapers are hurting too.” But not hurting enough for them to return to professional journalism in their pages.

And the article goes on from there, offering this tidbit: “…some observers cite the fact that journalists as a group are much more progressive than the public.” Do ya think?

How ‘bout you? Any suggestions for how to get factual, timely news from one or more of the MSN platforms? I’d like to know. Send your musings to gfa7156@aol.com



‘Manufactured Housing Action’ – On the Move!


A newsletter distributed (11/30/22) by Manufactured Housing Action (‘MHAction’) describes how tenant activist members made recent visits to the White House, Illinois (Springfield, Peoria, Bloomington, and Urbana-Champaign), New York (re: rent justification law) and Michigan, to share the organization’s “…perspective on the predatory business model affecting manufactured housing residents….”

Land lease community owners/operators have only themselves to blame for this sorry state of affairs. Not all owners/operators, mainly the ones who’ve acquired their properties and portfolios of communities during the past few years – and then, despite cautions otherwise, raised rental homesite rates excessively. Result? A wave of landlord-tenant legislation and threats of regulatory oversight not suffered during the past 30+/- years.

I’ve suggested several measures, in past blog postings, how to address this serious and timely abuse of homeowners/site lessees in land lease communities. Not going to do it again here today. But if you really wish to know, contact me via gfa7156@aol.com and I’ll share the ‘formula’ with you.

GFA/cc