BuckeyeBlog

The Cleveland Plain Dealer is at it again, publishing a story on payday lending that seem to have been written by the Center for Responsible Lending or some other anti-lending group. This story is an ostensible fact-check on the TV ad from Ohioans for Financial Freedom (OFF). In the ad, OFF talks about all the jobs that would be lost when payday lenders shut down.

It’s interesting to note that while the author of this piece, V. David Sartin, castigates OFF for misrepresenting the facts, he trots out this complete untruth to smear the industry: “Old Ohio law allowed interest rates as high as 391 percent for a two-week loan.” Using his own rating system, Sartin would get a 0 on a scale from 0 (misleading) to 10 (truthful) . Old Ohio law allowed a 15% interest rate on a two-week loan. People were not paying $391 to borrow $100. They were paying $15 to do so. How can Sartin be the one evaluating these ads when he lacks basic knowledge about the industry.

Furthermore, Sartin, instead of actually checking facts, simply dismisses the idea that people will lose their jobs. It says that many of the stores will remain open to provide service and, thus, employ people. But it’s unclear how many stores will actually remain open and how many people they will employ. After all, it’s pretty hard to make a profit when you are only allowed to charge $1.08 per every $100 borrowed on a two-week loan. It’s clear that the payday lending “reform” legislation passed by the General Assembly is a job-killer. It would be nice if newspapers actually did some digging into the facts before writing on this subject.

I find it highly ironic that the Cleveland Plain Dealer is attacking the television ad from Ohioans for Financial Freedom for inaccuracy. This ad, which discusses the referendum on the payday lending ban, discusses the invasion of privacy created by the new law but the Plain Dealer accuses it of being untruthful. As I have discussed here many times,  editorials from the Plain Dealer and other newspapers have played very fast and loose with the facts about payday lending. These editorials often parrot the talking points of anti-lending activists and usually contain a variety of outright falsehoods. I’m awaiting the day when the Plain Dealer holds itself to the same standards it is holding Ohioans for Financial Freedom.