REPORTING THE RECESSION

I've heard a lot of people saying lately that they are sick of the media endlessly reporting recession stories and all the negativity and doom and gloom that comes with that. Some folks go so far as to say if we journalists all just shut up about it, everyone would carry on as normal and everything would be a lot better. While there may be some truth in that, journalists can't really ignore something that is a global reality. It isn't the media's role to protect us from bad things that are happening in the world. And people do want to know what is happening and to get advice from those who are, hopefully, in the know.

But because of the "self-fulfilling prophecy" aspect of recession it is incredibly important that our media outlets act responsibly and get the balance right. Over the quiet news period of the past few holiday weeks we have definitely had rather more daily news stories about falling house prices and desperate times in retail than was perhaps really necessary. Overall, house prices haven't actually fallen by a huge amount yet, and Christmas retailing wasn't nearly as bad as so many column inches predicted.

I'm not saying things are great out there, but as Bob Jones said the other day, for people who can keep their jobs and pay their mortgages things won't really change all that much. And there are always those who actually do well out of recession. All sides of the recession story need to be reported. A balanced picture is important to us all, and our journalists must rise to this challenge.

I'm not suggesting all our newspapers suddenly start running "good news" columns - but a bit of positivity here and there would be welcomed by many readers I think. This weekend's Herald on Sunday ran a feature piece by reporter Leah Haines called "Upside to the Downturn" - looking at ways to make the recession work for you. Good on Haines and the HOS for doing that. It was refreshing. More please.