[angie]

The Olive Press have been running this article over the last week or so ‘Property Buyers Flock to Spain’ on this link:

http://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2012/10 … -to-spain/

As you will see from those who posted comments, it received short shrift, so we decided to investigate as the O.P. says it comes from Charles Weston Baker of Savills International.

A colleague emailed CWB and his CEO at Savills who’ve just replied saying that ‘sorry for the delay, we needed to verify the source of the article’ and that ‘neither he nor Savills has a relationship with the Olive Press, NOR have we contributed to this article’.

The article was created by a ‘freelance journalist who has drawn quotes from other Press articles and with the Olive Press’ publication team, have ‘BLENDED these to produce the article’

My normal belief in The Olive Press being the only truthful paper in Spain has been completely shattered by this scam 👿

Savills have meanwhile contacted this paper in a denial of this fabricated article hyping the Spanish property market yet again 8)

[Chopera]

That article sounds familiar – I’m sure I read it somewhere else recently

[Chopera]

The article was created by a ‘freelance journalist who has drawn quotes from other Press articles and with the Olive Press’ publication team, have ‘BLENDED these to produce the article’

probably explains why

[DBMarcos99]

My normal belief in The Olive Press being the only truthful paper in Spain has been completely shattered by this scam

OlivePress online is just a site put together in WordPress that (generally) picks up on old Spanish news stories, plus the occasional “advertorial” and light-relief article.

Plenty of Spanish sites around (ElEconomista, CincoDias, Idealista, El Pais, ABC) and if you can’t read Spanish then try the English version of ElPais http://elpais.com/elpais/inenglish.html or ElConfidencial http://en.elconfidencial.com/.

Remember that newspapers have definite bias (like the UK and elsewhere). El Pais will generally publish stories of an “it’s all going to hell in a handcart” because it’s a PSOE paper. ABC who are on the PP and right wing side will look for more favourable pieces on the national government with critical articles of socialist mayors or separatists.

[angie]

I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised with newspaper journolingo and bias but must admit I was somewhat surprised at this considering the denial to any contribution to the article by Savills who I did think had originated it. 🙄

I particularly enjoyed the word ‘blended’ by Olive Press in the context of the made up story 😛

However, I think Savills have acted pretty quickly to distance themselves and it’s good that they are now asking the questions of Olive Press as to why they concocted this story, which as an agent is pretty good IMO 😛

[peterhun]

@angie wrote:

However, I think Savills have acted pretty quickly to distance themselves and it’s good that they are now asking the questions of Olive Press as to why they concocted this story, which as an agent is pretty good IMO 😛

Savills are a respected company, precisely why they used the name to fabricate this story.

[angie]

An astute assessment from you peter, the Olive Press uses a well known UK and International agent’s name to give their fabricated story some credibility, so for the Welsh head banger’s interest only, ‘it’s not all the agents’ fault’ 😆

[logan]

Free lance journalists are constantly looking for creative ways to sell an article. It’s the way they make a living. The fault lies here with the editorial responsibility of this newspaper who should know better.

I suspect it’s deliberate to attract more property advertising. These so called newspapers struggle to exists and truth is often a casualty. I hardly ever read them for that reason. As one poster wrote they only lift stuff from elsewhere that may have Spanish connections.

These forums are a better way to stay informed. 70% rubbish of course but the odd gem makes up for that. Web links I find are useful.

Every forum has it’s share of scammers, like the free lancer who flogged this cobblers to Olive Press. However eagle eyed members like Angie soon have them rumbled and exposed. 🙂

[angie]

Update on The Olive Press.

They have refused to post a couple more comments regarding the Savills denial despite the comments being light touch and not directly implicating them nor their publication team who Savills say ‘blended the freelancers extracts’, so be in no doubt The Olive Press posted a misleading article on ‘Property Buyers Flock to Spain’ 😡

Media sc–b-gs no better than any other editorial after all 👿

[Author]

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