Are NIMBY journalists fanning the NIMBY flames?

Fasten your seatbelts, here comes a classic Henry rant! 

Journalists who are desperate for column inches and click bate are fanning the NIMBY flames. Now don’t get me wrong, I am a big defender of freedom of speech (here I am, expressing my freedom of speech) but there really are some journalists who have sold their souls for a few quid and some cheap sensationalist rubbish. 

Over the past few weeks ,we have had to deal with (predominantly) young journalists who pick up a juicy NIMBY story that is anti-development. One of them, it turns out, sits in their little bedsit and trawls through planning applications and then finds objectors and try and create a story out of the application. Why? Their editor wants content that will get lots of reads and controversial planning applications get lots of reads.   

Or then you get the journalist who gets some NIMBY nonsense without understanding it. This specific example had two contradictory questions. The one question was about affordable housing stating that the average house price is £800k and the “affordable” still won’t help first time buyers. The very next question was about their objection to smaller units and how they don’t want flats… that is obviously cheaper. Of course, they paid NO attention to the fact that there will be socially rented and shared ownership or anything like that.

The irony is that most of these reporters are on very low wages. Most of them are freelance and have to sell their stories for a couple of hundred quid. And you have to wonder how it is that they could fuel campaigns against housing where there will be affordable homes where THEY could actually afford to live. Whose side are they really on? The NIMBYs or are they on the side of the millions of people who are locked out of the housing market… people like them! 

But all is not lost, we also had a lovely article that referred to our consultation website as “snazzy” and highlighted all the benefits and the fact that the site will provide much needed funding for infrastructure for the local community AND very much needed affordable housing (Mary from KentLive, if you read this, you need an award for excellent journalism!).

So, I have a challenge for any journalists out there who are not millionaires: Are you on the side or the millions of people in this country who can’t afford to buy a house (like me) or are you on the side of the millionaire NIMBYs who are worried that the new homes will devalue their £million house they purchased in 2001 at £150K? 

This is Government policy, this is also probably our last chance to do something about the housing crisis. I don’t expect you to turn a blind eye to valis criticism, but I do at the very least expect you to be balanced in your reporting and remind your readers of the greater good. Use your power and influence for the good! 

Until next week,

Henry