The Media Helps to Kill The Worlds Economy

The U.S House of Representatives rejected President Bush's 700 billion dollar rescue bid aimed at bailing out Wall Street (though they couldn't show this sense when their intelligent leader decided war was needed). With Wall Street's Dow Jones index taking its biggest one-day points fall in history after the deal was denied, European share indexes became immediately volatile in the Tuesday trading with huge declines hitting Asian stocks.

In the U.K the chameleonic David Cameron took his eyes off the door to Number 10 and announced that the Conservatives will work with the current government to tackle the financial crisis, taking the approach that we're all in this all together. Whilst partisan politics are arguably detrimental to our progression as a civilisation, and the governments of the World should be handed a large chunk of the blame for the current economical down turn, a large part should be reserved for the media.

It has become increasingly impossible over recent months to turn on the television, fire up the internet, pick up a paper of even flick through the trashiest of gossip-rag magazines that pollute the racks of news agents, without getting a sinking feeling in the stomach and being told that it's the end of the world in terms of economy. That we, as a nation, a world, a people all are heading into the gaping jaws of the Great Depression Mark 2.

This, surely, is the definition of scare mongering. Playing on the fears of the Everyman that rent will be a bit harder to find and food more expensive in order to push their paper or sell advertising space on their website. An approach exemplified by the Times of London who ran a stunning black and white shot of London's financial district amongst the clouds that surround it's peaks with a headline along akin to 'Fear Stalks the Banks."

People hold the financial aspect of their lives in high concern, a ridiculous amount of adverts on television are dedicated to offering higher rates of savings, loans and deals for their money. It is, therefore, sickening to glance at the news and see a trusted media outlet, funded by public licence fees, proclaim that yet more economical doom is looming. Especially when said peddler of news puts this information right beside news that Eastenders has cleaned up at the Soap Awards.

More and more, media is treating the economical slowdown as entertainment. The problem is that they employ the same fear-inducing tactics as the Americans do whenever something anywhere in the world happens and they increase their terror alert to beige. The news media has become a changed beast since the tragic events of September 11th, every little detail is jumped upon incase it could be the next big thing to have such an impact and either a certain network won't receive coverage rewards or there is some way in which over-reporting could solve the problem. Or, even less-likely, the American audience isn't scared enough. Of everything.

Just look at the state of things in America at present. There's a pretty big blip in their economy (good thing they're not spending millions upon millions of much needed dollars on a military operation) so they do the right thing and look to fix it. Only, this isn't news enough, let's have one of the word media's biggest circuses interrupted and send one of the Presidential candidates back. Not because he's losing, mind. Of course, to the media, this is gold! This must mean the End of the World is nigh!

Though, on a strictly speculative note, should McCain have any influence on this? Surely if he gets his way and decides to "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" won't that be more detrimental to the world's economy than any mortgage lender's collapse?

Big institutions will often fail due to poor planning (sub-prime mortgages should never have been approved, where was the foresight?), it's happened throughout history and will continue to do so. For every great business decision that builds an empire there will be another that will cause one to crumble. Nothing is set in stone and the economy works like an elastic band, constantly stretching and snapping back but continual in this process as it always recovers. Until now, how can economies be expected to recover if people are too scared to spend thanks to an over zealous media?

Sure, oil prices will rise. It's one of life's little guarantees, especially when you pump millions into a war effort that manages to increase them accordingly. Just don't act surprised when the knock on effect is that food prices go up. Of course, it would be easy to point out that if governments really want to live up to election promises of reducing costs they should stop creating such a turbulent and, therefore, expensive world.

That all-hype-all-the-time media is a funny thing though as, like a common cold or fatal disease, it's infectious and has spread to pretty much every news outlet across the globe. Yes, media has a duty to report the facts but do not create news in doing so. The media is guilty of creating an environment of fear where people are too scared to spend money on even their essentials and thus save the economy.

About the Author

Patrick is an expert travel researcher and writer currently researching Manchester Airport Parking, Glasgow Airport Hotels and Glasgow Airport Parking

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