For Today's Media the Economic Crisis Is Yesterday's Story

Could it be that all those 'top stories' in the media are just for the top people?

The media -- with the Huffington Post an honorable exception -- appears to have a blind spot for the suffering of Joe, the now chronically unemployed plumber, and an equal disregard for Josephine, that hard-working homeowner who was evicted from her foreclosed home.

According to a broad survey of print, broadcast and online media by the Pew Research Center, the media has lost interest in stories that go beyond Washington and New York -- including coverage of the suffering of millions of everyday Americans living the reality of this economic crisis.

So perhaps it's not surprising that "Covering the Great Recession -- How the Media Have Depicted the Economic Crisis" has been largely ignored by the media itself. After all, their major concerns, it seems, are with the few in banking, institutions and big business, not with the many enduring the pain of the crisis.

"Covering the Great Recession" shows that while news of billions of dollars for bank bail-outs, the administration's stimulus, and the auto industry dominated, people in the media were far less engrossed in the issue that affects the lives of millions of Americans: unemployment.

News of job losses, according to Pew's research "filled just 6% of the newshole."

Having a roof over their heads is of immense importance to people across the country. And given the high burden of debt borne by most homeowners, movements in house prices are of nail-biting concern. Furthermore mortgage defaults and falling house prices were both the trigger of the crisis, and have since been in the very eye of the financial storm.

Yet housing and foreclosures made up just 6 percent of the total economic newshole and the high-water mark of media coverage of housing issues occurred back in February.

One can only assume that the media considers the housing and foreclosure crisis over.

While bankers continually grabbed the media limelight, stories exposing the devastating impact of this "Bankers Recession" on ordinary Americans were reflected in only 5 percent of the economic coverage by news media that the Pew Research Center tracked.

The bankruptcies and failures of the industries that grow, make, produce and distribute the goods and services vital to the real economy, barely got a look-in from the press: only 4 percent of coverage.

Our ongoing 'Bankers' Recession' is a top-down crisis, and unsurprisingly it turns out that this crisis is reported by the media in a top-down way. While we hear a lot about bank bail-outs in Washington and stock market moves in New York , there is far too little about the debt virus that is mutating into a pandemic of bankruptcies, foreclosures and unemployment in the inner cities, suburbs and rural areas outside of these two conurbations.

While the media keep us informed of measures to bail out the rich and powerful, with good tidings of how those at the top are recovering from the crisis, there is little about the suffering of people in the middle and at the bottom.

This might help to explain the widespread confusion as to what is really going on in the economy.

And it might explain why, despite the fact that a quarter of a million Americans lost their jobs last month, many have been persuaded by the media that the recession is yesterday's story.

 

 

Comments

[MCTSilverlakeCA]

And who do you think OWNS the Media? Big Financial Institutions have always had a big boot in their organizati­ons... or did you forget about William Randolph Hearst ... his descendants are still with us... and nothing they don't want on the airwaves will get on the airwaves..­. least of all anything that might impact on their Fat Cat Profits...

[Mildmannered]

Even this website doesn't have many stories on unemployment and underemployment from the recession and the resulting financial and other troubles it causes.

[HamletsMill]

Thank you Ms. Pettifor! The U.S. national "T" shirt right now is "I SEE DUMB PEOPLE." Until that changes regarding economics, we are in very, very deep trouble. I gladly voted for President Obama. I give him another full year. If there are no real changes with the Wall Street-MIC-DC CorpGOPers and Wall Street-MIC-DC CorpDNCers by then then the tide is going to go out to the horizon. When you see that prepare. Because the tsunami that is going to come back in is going to be a NEW POPULIST POLITICAL PARTY ORGANIZED OVER THE INTERNET OVERNIGHT replete with grass roots funding in the United States that will drown the existing system. It will happen unless a "SANE DEAL" is coming out of the "Great Recession".

Meanwhile.­. I study these FOUR women that did not fail the nation. I now include you in the below video too!

ELIZABETH WARREN
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1Uk-DwUvJw

BROOKSLEY BORN
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dVcic7czQ8

ELLEN BROWN
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU0XiklHPMc

C.A. FITTS
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5455605137215634518#

THESE FOUR ABOVE DID NOT FAIL US
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izYTskwE0As

AVENGE DISGRACE ROAD
http://www.crashopedia.com/index.php/Main_Page

REMEMBER OUR FATHERS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPU4p7UQOtU.

[kendraro]

Well, the solution is: ignore the msm! we gave up tv long ago and stream or download what we want to watch (and it isn't the news) also I used to go to the NYTimes website first thing every a.m. - now HuffPost is is my first choice, I get around to the Times later, I look at my local a couple of times a week because they have gotten so lame. (used to subscribe - now no point) There was a time when the tv news was more than trash talk - I grew up on Cronkite, rest his soul, and when the papers were well-written by journalists - now it's hacks churning out crap that doesn't even make sense half the time. I don't know if the people at the top who decided that having an impartial press didn't suit them will care if we all stop participating - but I would think it would help.

[josephXY]

I think there would be sort of market for people who are media maxed, who are tired of the
media somehow. What I do not believe in is wailing and ranting about the media, thats a
waste of time. Simply following up what is happening in the industry might be just as well,
having a look at the sins of the media occasionally like that article:
http://rinf.com/alt-news/media-news/where-was-media-when-sub-prime-disaster-unfolded/2854/

Or that one, dealing with the ad pricing strategies, the costs and usefulness of advertising.
Circumstances and habits have changed dramatically. That aspect is something the media just
would not want to hear about at all as it touches on their strategies of total greed in the past. What they expect from advertising businesses was ludicrus and is ever more becoming an issue as businesses are not for the sole purpose to keep the media and ad industry happy.
One of the papers folded some time ago. The mentioned pricing strategy is in no way a single
case:
http://denver.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2004/11/08/story4.html

[GardenerNorCal]

I am so tired of hearing the discussion always focussed on personal responsibility of the poor and fat. Thing is the fat pay for insurance. They pay for it month after month, year after year. The poor didn't buy homes without bank approval.

It's time for a little CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY!

[GardenerNorCal]

It's all about marketting. We are being sold a bill of goods. Media bytes that tell us there is such a thing as a jobless recovery. We are being sold a mandate to purchase health care insurance on the premise that this is health care reform. Neither have any basis in fact.

Regulation and accountability are the only true reforms. You can bet once the individual mandate is in place government and finance will find a way to regulate our compliance and hold us accountable through fines and taxes. But they can't do that to big finance? It's unreasonable to hold a few corporations accountable, but it's entirely possible to set up a bureauacracy to make millions of average working citizens accountable to private industries who guarrantee no return for our investments. We will have to pay for worthless paper, and yet after billions in bailouts they don't even have to open their books.

[glitzqueen]

Oh, for pity's sake, this issue isn't complicated. Just consider who owns mainstream media.

Until rules allowing media dominance by a few conglomerates are reversed by the FCC -- and court decisions affirming broadcasters' right to lie are overturned by leglislation -- here we are and here we'll stay.

[Las Vegas Jim]

Good article. Most of the on-air folks, producers, etc., are in Manhattan or otherwise removed from reality. They are not stupid people (and I love the City), but I have heard one of them on Fox state as a fact that anyone with less than $250,000 per year is barely middle class! The Peter Schiff video is brilliant! Laffer, Stein, and the Fox hacks Payne, Varney and the idiot Mike Norman are beyond pathetic! I always dismissed Schiff as a fringe gold bug, but his calm and clear comments cannot be denied as totally accurate. I really loved the Fox “experts” telling viewers to buy Merrill, Bear and WaMu! I must have missed their somber apologies. But, I quit Fox two years ago when Stein pushed an emerging markets fund (which I had just sold) and it proceeded down 50+%. I was lucky on that, but I was not so fortunate on my Las Vegas home and my community decimated by foreclosures and job losses. I know people in their 50-60’s who have lost EVERYTHING who only three years ago were economically solid. No, the media elites would rather cover Nobel prizes, movie stars, or an LA car chase rather than the deeper and complex stories of real Americas suffering in this economic crisis.

[josephXY]

The media don't want to be reminded of the incredibly wrong forecasts and comments
at the height of the that recent media hype. They wouldn't want to mention that refresher of memory:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I0QN-FYkpw

[DS1Roger]

What happened to the homeless coverage that was so prevalent under Bush?
We are now in a much worse state and the media is whistling in the dark. IF there was such a thing as fair and balanced they should revisit those stories for the new age.
It's a sad sate of affairs when the media doesn't get the picture. The media is so enamored they put on blinders to the public's woes. It shows them as shallow elitists only caring for their own viewpoints.
I can and will disagree with much stated here but this time it's right on target.

[billiej]

With six workers for each job, wages at an all time low (and declining), bankruptcies still rising, foreclosures continuing as ARMS re-set, unemployment at record levels, under-employment and part-time employment at new highs and hours continuing to be reduced, it's easy to understand why 'the media' has lost interest.

Note to incumbents: voters have not 'lost interest'.

[josephXY]

The video with Peter Schiff and a number of financial experts, forecasting and commenting in
06 / 07 could be recommended to those critical and fed up with the media. It helps sort out that
bit of the crisis:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I0QN-FYkpw

[BocaMom]

Unfortunately, the local and national media is missing in action when it comes to talking about the economy, 10% unemployment and the do nothing Congress. do absolutely nothing about helping American getting back to work. We have members of our immediate family as well as other family members and friends out of work and unfortunately nobody cares. It's very disappointed.

[LCLA]

Local media in my community are not only ignoring the story, but they are going out of their way to find stories which make it sound like there never was a recession and everyone is fully recovered, especially at home.

[DeadPossum]

Yes Ann, I've been wondering for a long time about the media's obsession with Wall Street. A big casino largely inhabited by the 1% of the population with nothing much to worry about.
The media has represented Wall Street as the barometer of economic performance and national wellbeing. Not in my world. Only two things matter.
1) Do I have a pay packet?
2) Does it cover my expenses?
If you add up the number of households that answer no to either 1 or 2, you get a measure of the nation's financial pulse. Close to flat line.
Ask yourself, can you expect any kind of trickledown if Wall Street does well? Didn't think so. Has any increase of GDP found its way into your pocket? Didn't think so.
We need new measures of progress. A street level index of financial survival. Drag the economic wonks into reality.
Perhaps we can take a lead from a really advanced country where they measure 'Gross Domestic Happiness' (GDH) to indicate progress. Bhutan.