Increased viewers/listeners/readers equals increased advertising revenue.
Hence the media's drive to sensationalise, their incessant need to drive attention grabbing sound bites and headlines.
I get theses things, but now, right now, they are just not seeing the bigger picture. Sensationalising the economic situation does not do them any good in the long term. Their owners and sales teams need to get down in the editorial department and ask them to try to at least give some sort of balanced view. Stop spreading the gloom and panic. Actually try to make a positive supportive difference. Do it to protect your own revenue, do it to protect your own job.
So in an effort to prove a point I looked into the latest media frenzy around UNEMPLOYMENT. LONDON HIT'S X HUNDRED THOUSAND JOBLESS. JOB CRISIS. Please look at the below graph. It shows unemployment from 1980 - now.
We've just had it too good, and we love a good old moan. Unemployment is lower now than it has been for the whole of the 80's and 90's.
Don't believe the hype.
Now get back to work!
James
I so agree with this. I was publishing a business magazine in the credit space during the first six months of the credit crisis. So many of our readers and advertisers, particularly in New York, used to say, "We appreciate the fact that you don't sensationalise this stuf. Why do the newspapers feel the need to do it?"
ReplyDeleteOur explanation was that we already wrote about credit, so didn't need to push it onto the front page. On a newspaper, the credit editor needs to promote the whole asset class as being newsworthy, then tell the story - so they sensationalise to make it look more important than equities, or commodities or, say, shipping. But the result of that is headlines saying, "The end is nigh" and "We're all doomed".
The New Yorkers were particularly upset about it because the NY Times doesn't have a strong credit understanding, while the FT has an excellent team.
But I also think it's an English thing. I've noticed that the entire media here is talking down the marketplace - and only makings things worse. While the US and Australian media (the main ones I read) are reporting along the lines of "Here is a crisis, how do we solve it?" the British media is saying "The fat cats have put us in this,", "the rich are making the proletariat pay again", "Our economy has been destroyed." It is doing nobody any favours.
And the most important thing to point out to people is that if the bankers had not been utilising the exotic credit products to free-up the capital markets, the situation we are in now would be normal. That's right, it would be normal for poorer people not to get mortgages, for businesses to struggle to raise capital, for the economy to carry high unemployment and the government to have to institute massive public spending initiatives to keep people employed.
Thank you Damian. Glad to have your input.
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