Today on the mediabistro.com Morning Media Menu, hosts Jason Boog of GalleyCat and AgencySpy's Matt Van Hoven welcome Alyssa Katz, freelance journalist and author of the new book "Our Lot: How Real Estate Came to Own Us."

Her book talks about the housing bubble and the mortgage mess, but today she talked about how many main stream journalists missed the building drama. "No one else at the time was connecting these mass foreclosures in Ohio to this booming market in mortgage securities on Wall Street," she said.

Now the places in the country that are doing the worst -- still -- are inland California, Florida and the Cleveland area, Katz said. "I think we have to look very closely about what's happening in Washington and what isn't happening there," she said. "Right now why some areas are being hit so hard is that we're in a zero sum scheme. Basically its the lenders and the financial institutions that finance them and the lenders on the other side. And anything that is done without direct government money to help homeowners means that the banks lose. And as you know our banking system is in very precarious."

Also discussed: author Alice Hoffman's dispute with a book reviewer on Twitter (a follow-up from yesterday's discussion) and OK! magazine paying $500,000 for Michael Jackson's last photos.

You can listen to all the past podcasts at BlogTalkRadio.com/mediabistro and call in at 646-929-0321.