Search This Blog

Thursday, January 01, 2009

Reporting or Making the News

The Gorse Fox was reflecting on the events of last year and a discussion he had with Cousteau-cub over the phone from Thailand a week or so back.

The islands off Thailand are suffering a bit of a downturn in tourists and this is affecting the hotels and the activity centres such diving. Some is inveitably caused by caution arising from the downturn in the economy, but some they lay squarely at the door of the BBC's reporting of the recent demonstrations at Thai airports. This was totally over the top and whilst it did disrupt air traffic, the demonstrations were peaceful, good natured and like a big open air pop concert. The BBC scare-mongering however has frightened off tourists and many workers are being laid off in tourist centres.

Taking this thought further - the Gorse Fox has always been deeply unsettled by the BBC reporting of many events - he then started to think about the "credit crunch". He discussed it this week with his brother-in-law and with Barney Rubble. His conclusion (which appeared to get total agreement) is that whilst things are indeed in a parlous state, this is to a considerable degree caused by the BBC's extravagant reporting and the fear and uncertainty that they caused by this in the markets. Even in this last week we have heard of a further catastrophic fall of 2% in the FTSE index, but not the 3% rise the following day. All of their graphics still show a downwards arrow and this is subliminally giving a message of depression and despondancy. 
Would the credit crunch have happened anyway - possibly. 
Would it have happened quite so suddenly and alarmingly - not a chance. 

The BBC's reporting was like dousing a smouldering fire with petrol, and whilst we are busy painting the Bankers as pariahs we should not forget the damage that the BBC has done to the economy through sensationalist reportage. It is time they got back to reporting the news and left speculation and opinion to the printed media - particularly when their opinion can cause such collateral damage.

2 comments:

Lovely's Blot said...

I agree with you in many ways. Talking to my brother I do think there were serious problems in the City that led to this problem and I don't blame the News programmes for that but the way they all report the depth of the crisis makes the Daily Express look like an exercise in positive thinking! I also hate the way they all report the serious news stories followed by 20 minutes promoting their next cr*p TV show (celebrity whatever)as if that is important news as well! I guess in the days of instant communication bad news travels fast. That's the one difference I notice between the recession in the 80s when I lived with negative equity for 6 years, and now..things seem to move much faster, seem more extreeme but actually fizzle out to nothing!
On that note.. happy new year to you!

Unknown said...

Nice one Rew. Fully agree as you know. Only thing is, the BBC will not change unless we all boycott them. Impossible to do methinks.

Robert Peston for PM; that way he can put his money where his mouth is as he seems to know it all!!!!!