Wednesday, October 1, 2008

New Thought on Media & the Economy

For the first time in what seems like quite a long time, I find the news media to be accurately reporting something: the financial crisis. While reading and watching the news I am tending to find more honest, open reporting on the economic conditions, what the government is or isn't doing, information on the banks, credit market, etc. They are leaving the commentary and editorials to the commentators and editorialists (with the politicians doing some as well). With all of the spin, it seems like the facts are actually there presented to us all. 

The reason for this is simple, the media is as concerned about the state of the economy as we are. From the corporate owners, to the shareholders, to the anchor on TV, we all have been or could be seriously affected by the economy. We are all reliant on the economy to survive, as are the news media. We love to hate the mass media and we quickly forget they are people too. I tend to see this when watching CNN during the day when the anchors here in Atlanta are really just regular people with a job. They need that job to provide for their families, just like all of us. When they ask questions to reporters in the field, or economic experts, they sound sincere, worried, and needing the information reported accurately just as we need news reported accurately. With a collapse of the economy, some of those reporters might be out of job too, even with news that needs to be reported. The companies they work for just might not be able to pay them either. 

So just this once, the news gets a pass. They are reporting exactly what we need to see and for once, in an honest manner. Will this continue? Doubtful and they'll go back to reporting in their usual spin-fashion once the economic crisis ends (assuming it does). It does cause you to do some thinking about how serious the financial problems truly are and that the media does have a few employees that do have souls. That or they are that worried about their 401K. Either which way, glad to have them on our side for a change.

I'll provide some examples to hopefully strengthen this theory tomorrow.

1 comment:

Leonard Pagano III said...

One of the reasons that I think there was so much honesty in the media in regards to the bailout is that no one was sure it would work. So we heard from the people who were against it on principle. The people that weren't, however, were really just trying to find out more about it to see if it would work or not. I think if there was a better understanding of how the bailout would work; there would have been more biases.