It’s been quiet on the Hot PJ Blog for a while. I have been overseas and Mark has been left holding the fort, juggling both his usual role and some of mine too. But he did manage to get a newsletter out, where he discussed the possible death of the print media.

Whilst on holiday in the middle of Russia there wasn’t much printed media in English but we still couldn’t escape the economic crisis.  With only two English language news channels to keep us entertained during the long winter nights, we couldn’t escape reports on how the economic crisis was affecting Europe.

News about the economic crisis was pretty much a daily staple on these two channels. The French channel France 24, other than being occupied with what was going on in the French Caribbean territory of Guadeloupe and in Gaza, covered President Sarkosy’s rescue package for his country’s car manufacturing industry; offering a significant subsidy package with the proviso that no jobs in France will be lost. A move seen by Brussels and some fellow EU members as ‘protectionism’ but which France firmly thumbs its nose at.

(By comparison, our governments recently announced 9 day fortnight ‘rescue package’ for large companies seems pathetic. Especially since most businesses that have been the mainstay of the New Zealand economy for so long employ under 10 staff.)

German News TV ‘Deutsche Welle’ reported that traditionally strong economies like Germany have suffered the worst downtown in the EU, prompting recovery packages similar to France. Surprisingly the smaller and often less developed EU countries, like Bulgaria, Greece, and Poland are experiencing growth, all be it small. Like France, Germany was seeking to protect it’s car manufacturing industry

My Russian is at little more than preschool level so I couldn’t tell you how much the economic crisis featured in the news there, but it certainly didn’t come up in any dinner or other conversation that I had with our Russian acquaintances.

Now I am home, I find it hard to remain unaffected by the daily dosages of economic doom and gloom that come my way via television and radio.

This has lead me to ponder over how much impact mainstream news media actually has on our economy.

It would be interesting to conduct a social/economic experiment – turning back the clock and reprogramming our news media to report only good news. We then all go about our business in blissful ignorance of what is happening with the American economy.

Then we’d compare the economic outcome. It would be interesting to see if we ended up in the same place we are now?

Is recession as much a mindset as it is about GDP?

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BRAINTEASER

Which famous news agency has this photo been taken of?

Clue: It is located in one of the countries mentioned in this post.

Posted on March 15th, 2009 by Wendy Riley-Biddle
Filed under: General