Viewpoint: The Latest Witch Hunt 

A story in Monday’s New York Times (“Banks Starting to Walk Away on Foreclosures,” March 20, 2009) rehashes a concept that’s anything but new — vacant properties, and the headaches that go with them. But what’s irksome more than anything else in the Times’ coverage is the suggestion that vacant properties are “the next phase” of the nation’s housing crisis. Let’s start with the premise of this latest example of psuedo-journalism, and the requisite villianization of the lender: