Journalist would re-start real-estate blog if the right sponsor materializes
After a six-year run, John Rebchook has shuttered his Denver Real Estate Watch blog, but he’d fire up the platform again if the right sponsor makes the right offer.
Rebchook posted Dec. 13, “With only one sponsor it does not make financial sense to continue to publish DREW, given the huge commitment of time and effort it requires.”
A former Rocky Mountain News reporter, Rebchook practiced independent journalism under a for-profit business model, funding his blog through sponsorships.
He told me that in his blog posts, he “looked at issues objectively,” and at times “some people didn’t like that, frankly.”
Does he think, based on his experience, that the for-profit model is unworkable for journalist like him covering real estate or related issues?
“My experience shows it’s tough,” he said. “I did it for almost seven years. I never made a whole lot of money at it. I went the sponsorship route, but perhaps it would have been better to have individual adveristing. But that’s tough too.”
“Somebody could do it better than I did,” he said. “It was time consuming. I was a one-person show.”
Asked about remaining real estate coverage in metro Denver, Rebchook said there’s a handful of news entities still covering beat, which, he pointed out, has wide interest.
“There’s more coverage of real estate than the marijuana business,” he said.
Rebchook is working part time at the Colorado Real Estate Journal, a trade publication for commercial real estate.