On March 17, 2010, Vornado received a letter from the special servicer on the debt securing its High Point, North Carolina commercial properties that the loan on that asset is in default.

Tucked into an article about a DC-area mall deal gone bad, news about what may be the biggest commercial real estate story in the Triad, which for some strange reason continues to be advanced more on this blog than in the local press.

Comments

[Jim Caserta]

Ed, did you get a pointer to the original Journal article, or were you reading the WSJ and saw HP mentioned? OK, went back and your 'bond market correspondent' pointed to an 8-K. This is what I thought about online publishing back in the early days of the web in the mid-late 90's. Crowdsource things so that someone may only write one article a year, about something they have knowledge or some connection to. In this case, the bond market & a connection to the Triad.

The difference I see is an amateur writer contributing when they have something to contribute vs. a pro writer looking for stories to write. You can sort of see this with the Lehman report and how more in-depth writing is being done on blogs than in the MSM. I don't think it's any sort of pro-business bias, it's just that some bloggers have more time, intensity and related knowledge than many pro writers. There still isn't a great conglomeration mechanism, although RSS readers generate what might be construed as a personalized version.

[Ed Cone]

A GSO native who works in the bond business sent me a link to the SEC filing.

I published the information about this big local story at my website.

The Wall Street Journal also picked up on the news about Vornado.

The High Point paper published a story after I emailed its reporters, and the BizJournal ran an article, too, presumably after reading this blog.

Nothing more that I've seen. Nothing in the N&R.

The new media model worked perfectly, including the part where the major media picked up the story...for a moment.

[Jim Caserta]

New media worked...I would argue the 'perfectly'. There have to be a lot of eyes that didn't see this story because they get news from the N&R, but not from HPE, BizJournal, WSJ or EC's WU.

Wouldn't it be nice to have James 'Bond' be a guest author at a more widespread media?

The fundamental changes I have seen in publishing is the removal of a space constraint, instant referencing, and a marginal cost of publishing near zero (obviously not a complete list, but a start). With such a dramatic system change, journalism has to change - systems develop in relation to their constraints.

[Ed Cone]

Gotta read past the dotdotdot...the model only worked perfectly "for a moment."

Document to blog to weekly and a lesser daily to...nothing.

But that could change quickly.

[Account Deleted]

This is sort of on topic. The Knight Digital Media Center has way more information than any one person could ever absorb, but bloggers and start-up community media ventures will find their resources of value.

[Tony Wilkins]

Any word on who the "special servicer" is?
I'm baffled by the lack of media coverage of this significant event.
And just fyi, several of the high ranking furniture executives were originally notified of this on your blog.

[Jim Caserta]

I'm still not satisfied with the news emergence of new media, and your mention of the City of GSO getting info out is somewhat of an example.

A better example of what I am thinking is Tanta's writing at Calculated Risk. She worked in the mortgage industry, and brought an insider's view of degrading underwriting standards. She started co-blogging there in late '06. Granted it wasn't at the very beginning, but consider that the DOW was at 13k at the end of 2007, and few MSM'ers were talking about the risks from housing. I also think she was either commenting or emailing CR in 2005, pre-peak.

Are people interested in this level of detail? I think it is necessary reading for people that are shaping policy, at the least. The problem, as I see it, is that a lot of the information never gets to the eyes it needs to. Traditional media has a traditional following, but I don't think they are delivering the most important information all the time.

[Ed Cone]

I'm not satisfied, either, just pointing to an example of the new system in action. It used to be rare, now it's much more common, but there's a long way to go.

Experts writing about their domain of expertise play a big role in what's coming next.