Categories: OLD Media Moves

Media too quick to call economic collapse

TheStreet.com media critic Marek Fuchs writes Monday about how the business media has been too quick to claim that the economy is collapsing and how it’s been wrong in making similar calls in the past.

Fuchs writes, “If history has taught us anything, it is that nearly all financial strength and weakness is cyclical. Good times don’t last, and neither do the bad.

“The problem is that in both good and bad times, the business media are king of the hyperbole. Journalists are short-term-oriented to begin with, which makes anything in-the-moment feel defining.

“Add that to the fact that if you are writing about a seismic shift, you are writing a bigger story, and guess what? You tend to go from one overreaction to the next.”

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Scott Baradell says:
February 2, 2009 at 4:37 pm
There's no question about the history, but in this case, journalists are less culpable than during, say, the dotcom collapse. This time, the "hyperbolic" language -- and we all hope that's what it turns out to be -- started with a consensus of politicians and business leaders, and the media is just playing off that.