The Desert Sun newspaper's Opinion page carries an invitation welcoming "guest columns addressing local political and social issues" from readers. The submissions accepted for print appear under the Valley Voice banner. Valley Voice columns are usually restricted to less than 550 words though today's offering required space for 638 words. The January 7, 2011 guest column came from local estate planning attorney Daryl I. Binkley. It's titled "Like celebrities, you can take steps to keep real estate holdings private". His column is a marvelous print example of the "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" idiom, for it's really a thinly disguised legal services advertisement from a clever lawyer.

The Binkley guest column uses the Palm Springs International Film Festival as its foil, but first he devotes several paragraphs lauding the festival, mentions his own attendance at some of the festivities and lets readers know he makes donations to the organization. The article then digs down and briefly mentions the importance celebrities should give to hiding their ownership of real estate and to keeping personal address information out of the public record. He then devotes the remainder to suggesting that readers should share such concerns and advises several steps individuals may take to hide their public record real estate ownership. He lists ways for readers to address personal privacy concerns and suggests placing a home in the "name of a business entity", "into an Asset Protection plan", "an entity, such as an LLC (Limited Liability Company), or "using trusts", as solutions. Binkley off-handedly notes such steps will add "a layer of privacy and extra cost to your budget". He summarizes, like any good lawyer, by advising "anyone wanting to take any of these steps should seek legal counsel". The end of the column author credit states, "Daryl L. Binkley of Palm Desert specializes in estate planning, business law and litigation".

Mr. Binkley is an attorney, a businessman, and clearly an enterprising entrepreneur. His cleverly uses the film festival subject as an enticement to draw readers into his web of helpful warnings about privacy-related legal concerns. It's not unreasonable to assume a healthy number of potential clients will soon be phoning his Palm Desert boutique law office. My hat's off to him for the admirable manner in which he managed, at no cost, to promote his services on the Opinion pages of The Desert Sun newspaper.

Today's Valley Voice column is definitely a departure from what's usually appeared, in recent memory, as a guest column on the Opinion page. The self promotion and free advertising aspects beg the question whether the column was vetted by an editor. Nevertheless, the decision to print the column represents poor judgment on the part of the editors and yet another step in the downward spiral the paper has been traveling in terms of its coverage and journalistic professionalism.

The newspaper is undergoing management changes and a new Executive Editor will soon be in place. Hopefully it'll be someone prepared to do a bit of housecleaning.

Bond Shands
Palm Springs