Is the media making the recession worse?

News about the recession seems to be constant at the moment. But is the media making it seem worse than it is? Tom Leatherbarrow, head of business-to-business at agency Willoughby PR, is sure that the media loves to dwell on the bad and ignore the good. He says: “A few years ago I had lunch with the economics editor of a national Sunday newspaper and he admitted to me that the media had a bad-news bias. Coverage of the recession in the last few months has reflected this, in particular the space and air time given to two surveys, namely the BDO Business Optimism Index and the Chartered Institute of Development survey, both of which were highly negative.“

The problem, says Leatherbarrow, is that the manufacturing sector is being run down in these surveys with the media propagating myths that either we have no manufacturing base in the UK or that we are merely involved in final assembly. But Leatherbarrow claims: “The truth is that the UK is still the world’s eighth largest manufacturing economy.“

Leatherbarrow says he personally knows examples of businesses that are doing well, but which are getting fed up with news coverage: “There is increasing frustration among senior management in UK manufacturers about the tone of coverage and the refusal to look beyond surveys which are designed to generate PR coverage, but do not reflect reality on the ground.”

Simon Turton, owner of agency Opera PR, agrees with Leatherbarrow that the media is not helping the economy. “There's no doubt that the fear of a double-dip recession (which seems to be encouraged by the headline writers) could well tip the country back into another period of negative growth”. He adds: “The national media, particularly the BBC, seem to like to announce gloomy headlines and I am getting sick of the likes of Huw Edwards (always going for the Oscar) and Robert Peston, who seem to be in a battle to out-gloom each other.”

The chart below shows how coverage of the recession peaked in the last month. Echo research analysed UK online news media from 14 August to 14 September.

The Recession Daily Media Coverage Trend:

Roger Carroll, director at PR agency Pelham Bell Pottinger says that we shouldn’t blame the media for believing that bad news is good news: “Scares and scandals sell papers and push up viewing figures. So – when sales are falling and ads are scarce – the media will never let a good crisis go to waste. That’s the most realistic starting point for an analysis of media coverage of the recession.”

Carroll says that no paper and no TV channel is immune. He says: “As I write, today’s latest Sun pun says the jobless total is ‘doleful’ and the Daily Express gloats: ‘Strike chaos to cripple Britain‘ – while, at the other end of the market, the Wall Street Journal happily predicts Obama will carry America over ‘the great tax cliff’ and the FT bemoans ‘Britain’s plight’.”

Carroll says that the media cannot be blamed, as it hasn‘t caused the recession, and adds: “Media schadenfreude is almost lovable compared with the greed of bankers, the doziness of regulators and the hapless confusion of our political ‘leaders‘, to use the word in its loosest sense. However, for as long as a new twist to the recessionary panic is just a careless phrase away, every sensible business should realise that – now more than ever – good, professional PR can make all the difference.”

Good PR may help businesses do better in a recession, but PR can also be blamed, to some extent, for encouraging bad news coverage. The media may have been dwelling on bad recession news, but it seems that the PR industry is even more interested in the subject. According to research from DWPub, PROs mention “recessionary” phrases in press releases more often than journalists request comment on it.

How often do press releases mention the recession?

Media relations specialist DWPub researched how often recession has been mentioned on its SourceWire (press release wire) and ResponseSource (journalist enquiry service) in the last month (16 August - 15 September):

• SourceWire: 550 press releases submitted in the last 30 days.  Recession mentioned 11 times, credit crunch mentioned twice, downturn mentioned twice.
   
• ResponseSource: 2,187 journalist requests sent in the last 30 days. Recession mentioned three times, credit crunch mentioned one time, downturn mentioned twice.
   
• PROs mention “recessionary” phrases in their SourceWire Press Releases 10 times as often as journalists request comment on it on ResponseSource.

Ana Mangahas, associate director at agency Firefly Communications, is one PR professional who disagrees with the idea that the media is scare mongering about the economy. She explains: “Before serious talk of a double-dip recession, there was plenty of doom-and-gloom reporting, but there was also a fair number of columnists willing to be contrarian, as if saying, ‘calm down dear’. I often found this to be the case when I read CityAM, for example, on the commute to work.“ Although Mangahas does admit that: “At the moment, those contrarian views seem rather quiet”.