Green shoots a media fantasy, facts not supportive
Posted on 14 May 2009 with no comments from readers
A good journalist should always check his or her facts before writing a story. But the big media organizations also have to pander to their advertisers. Recently they have been told not to be so gloomy or the ads will go.
Now perhaps that is being unfair on the ilk of CNN with its new ‘Road to Recovery’ reports, or CNBC financial TV whose presenters who have said the recession is over. But let us have a look at the latest facts.
No green shoots
European industrial output fell by 20.2 per cent in March, according to eurozone official statistics published yesterday. That was the worst monthly decline on record for at least 50 years.
Then there is the Chinese data. The world’s largest exporting nation saw its exports drop 22.6 per cent last month, the six monthly fall in a row and the biggest.
Or look at the 50 per cent fall in the Japanese current account surplus because exports from the world’s second largest economy have plunged by half this year. These are the facts. Global business has slumped.
Now clearly at some stage in the near future such sharp rates of contraction have to abate. But the point is that as European Central Bank governing council member Nout Wellink told Dutch TV, ‘it is too early’ to call an end to the economic contraction.
What is the rest of the global media playing at then with its talk of green shoots of recovery? Trying to cheer up gloomy consumers for its advertisers?
Not news
That is not the function of news. News is not for entertainment. News is for information, and that is very important to the functioning of a market economy.
Wrong information produces pricing distortions that have to be corrected later. Besides should media organizations also not remember that they are not doing public relations for their top clients but supposed to be assembling objective assessments of reality, something called news.
How stupid are these organizations going to look if the green shoots of recovery turn out to have been no more than wishful thinking. It is true that the public has tired of news about economic decline, but sadly that does not mean that it has ceased to happen.
For if a media company ceases to report reality and just becomes a mouthpiece for commercial propaganda then eventually people will realize and distrust it. They will switch to another channel or newspaper, or even an independent comment website.
no Comments posted by readers:
I love it when people shoot straight, which is exactly what you have done with this article. Your points are well-made, direct, and logical. It is the untruths of politicians & media talking-heads that got the world into this financial disaster. Just ask the host of Mad Money. The only “mad money” I see now are the trillions of dollars being thrown at corrupt financial institutions at the expense of average taxpayers. Maybe when all the jobs are gone the government will run out of tax money to spend. No, wait, they can always just print more monopoly money to give to their financiers in order to keep the machine charging forward. OR, borrow from China!
The news organizations only represent their parent companies and advertisers. They gave up giving us honest news long ago. This would also explain why newspapers are failing. They stopped being honest to the readers and we stopped buying them. Ad sales are down but that only explains a portion of the decline. That is why people visit sites like yours- to get the honest and true facts.