Television and the economy

[mleach]

of course just about everyone knows that our current economy is having problems but is TV making it seem to be actually worse than it really is?

Last night I was talking to a friend of mine who lives in Colorado and from what she was telling me the way the Denver & Colorado Springs TV stations are talking, why just about everyone in Colorado is unemployed, soup kitchens are on the way and people will be selling apples at Denver Broncos football games. If this is what is being done in Colorado where the unemployment rate really isn't all that bad, I can only imagine what TV stations are doing in an area that really do have problems like Detroit and Buffalo.

On the flip side of this what about cities that use TV to claim that they are "recession proof"? The reason I bring this up, recently my co-worker went on vacation to New England and she was telling me that she saw an ad appear on their local TV for the city of Indianapolis, Indiana. The ad went on to say that a recession "...just can't happen in Indianapolis !!" A few years back before the housing bust, I remember when both Las Vegas and Phoenix bought time on local Virginia TV telling people that they should move to one of those cities because housing is very cheap and just about anyone can find a job there.

My wife remembers seeing a similar ad for Charlotte, North Carolina last year saying ( like Indianapolis ) their city is "not allowed" to be in a recession and how the banking industry ( banks such as Wachovia ) are always hiring. However with recent news about problems with Wachovia Bank ( based in CHARLOTTE !! ), I have my doubts that ad is still running.

Any other cities have done this?

 

[BrigThomson]

Just remember..if it bleeds, it leads. Most TV reporters working in local stations today couldn't actually report a story if Edward R. Murrow,
William Shirer & Walter Cronkite did it for them. Any item that can be advanced to a hysterical end is done. There is little fact checking and very little knowlege. A beautiful example of this is to tune into virtually any of the 24 hour news channels where there is some sort of disaster taking place that needs a lot of coverage. They have people on network television so green your lawn would be envious. Notice the use of words when it comes to business stories. The Dow is read in 5 digits. So a gain or loss of a couple hundred points is in many ways a rather minor movement. But when it comes to their description the Dow "soared" or "plummeted" No it didn't. If the price of a barrel of crude oil goes up $2 it "shot thru the roof" Or if it sank by $2 it "fell thru the floor". None of that is responsible or intelligent reporting. Most of this has to do with people who just don't have the experience and supervisors who may only have 2 weeks more experience than the people who are being supervised. Overstatement is the rule of the day. If you look at political news, it doesn't matter which political party, the tiniest misspeak is reported as certain proof that this person or that person is an idiot, or liar or both. TV news is disappointing. The search for quality by local stations and networks is nowhere near as important as cash & ratings. Of course only a fool is in business not to make money, but the desire for as much money as possible is trumping any sort of fairness, or search for the truth. Take whatever they say and then dilute it by about 95%.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

In the case of the Dow, I agree with the reporter. A 2% swing in one day (approx 200 points) is massive. Of course, most of these +2% days are followed by a -1.75% day

I haven't noticed a lot of economy screaming in my local news. But then again, apparently Indianapolis is recession-proof

 

[Markxxx]

We're not really in a recession, it just seems like that.

The last big economic downturn was around 1979-1983. This was BAD, I recall people losing jobs and cuttiing grass to support their children.

The thing was in the 80s, we became a service/consumer economy, in other words people bought THINGS. Now people think if they don't have things it's a recession.

If you have cell phones, air conditioning, cable TV and other such items you have luxuries. People now scream I can't afford my cell phone. That is not an economic downturn. An economic downturn is when people can't afford a roof over their head or food. And by that I mean a roof over their head, not their own individual condo with mortage. By food, I mean enough to eat not going to the resturant 5 days a week.

People got used to tons of gadgets and services, now those are costing and people are thinking they are poor, but they aren't. People had money and moved 2 hours from their job now they can't afford gas. But that isn't a recession issue, that's a quality of life issue.

Furthermore we have underemployment, not unemployment. This makes it difficult to judge. If one works 35 hours a week he is underemployed. We have lots of job but a lot of these won't support a standard of living that people got used to. It doesn't mean you can't live on them, but that you're standard of living is "less"

Chicago is great for reporting people crying poor. But they aren't really poor, it only seems that way because their standard of living declined, mostly because they were living beyond their means to begin with.

 

[BrigThomson]

Your points are all good. People have become to think that they absolutely "have" to have a cell phone, or a home computer or be able to eat out or order take out at a moment's notice. People have come to figure it's a necessity to have 3 TVs, 3 cars, the kids MUST have a car to get to school you know, can't be caught taking the taxpayer funded bus. You're right. My dad was an R&D engineer for IBM. When he was working he was working on cutting edge technology..we would have had a computer at home like a pig has a jet engine. Cell phone for us kids? Forget it. Color TV, never when I was in the house. Drive my car to school instead of take the school bus? When Washington shows up on the $10 bill. Funny thng was..they always had money for what they needed, and they always paid for things in cash. Never on credit, with the exception of their house mortgage.

 

[mleach]

I haven't noticed a lot of economy screaming in my local news. But then again, apparently Indianapolis is recession-proof

Perhaps its because Indianapolis recently got a brand new, huge, exspensive football stadium for the Colts and maybe the Indy stations are downplaying the economy issues so people wouldn't think the new stadium is a waste of money. For a local station to report about poor people in the community, some business laying people off or whatever and then the next minute make a big deal about some brand new stadium that was build in their city..well that can raise eyebrows and hurt a city's image. Like Baltimore for example...at the exact same time Camden Yards was built the city of Baltimore was laying off school teachers, firefighters and policemen/women because Baltimore claimed they couldn't afford to pay them yet Baltimore had money to pay for a new home for the Orioles.

Funny thng was..they always had money for what they needed, and they always paid for things in cash. Never on credit, with the exception of their house mortgage.

Today I have seen kids as young as 14 with credit cards !!! Young people use their VISA cars to buy a hamburger and McDonalds and so forth. My neighbor is a lawyer who handles bankruptcy cases and from what he told me..about 95% of his cases are those under the age of 35 and most of those are those who maxed out their cards ( he told me about a 24 year old woman who had well over 50 different credit cards !! ) and then for one reason or another couldn't make the payments.

And this is the demographic that so many networks want to reach !!!

 

[landtuna]

We're not really in a recession, it just seems like that.

Warren Buffet publicly disagrees with you.

I'll take his word for it.

 

[Ultimajock]

...in October 1929, radio was run by people like Bill Paley and David Sarnoff, and the medium developed into a great source of mass entertainment in the subsequent years of the Great Depression. Today, who's running television? Men like Les Moonves and Rupert Murdoch. I wouldn't give you a nickel for TV's future in stormy economic seas with those stooges...

 

[dgendvil]

What about television in Canada? Are they pretty healthy there, despite that their economy is not as bad as ours?

 

[mleach]

What about television in Canada? Are they pretty healthy there, despite that their economy is not as bad as ours?

I wonder if any of those boarder cities or even Toronto & Montreal if their economies have suffered over that the new law that requires passports for those going into Canada from America? I know in Buffalo for years many people who live there look at Toronto as their "New York City", a place to experience "the big city" spend the day, shop and see the big broadway shows that otherwise wouldn't touch Buffalo.

As far as TV goes, I know CBC gets money from Canada but what about CTV, Global, and the others? Don't they get at least some money from the Canadian goverment?

 

[vibe]

Canada's economy is much better than the U.S. The U.S. imports approx 2M barrels of oil a day from Canada. Since approx 90% of Canada's population lives within 1 hr's drive of the U.S., Canadians flock across the border to buy our much cheaper gas saving themselves at least $2-2.50 per gal. In short, they sell oil at dear prices to the U.S. and buy our refined gas at cheap prices, a major factor why our dollar is losing value.
But television does not wish to 'expose" this. Canada is our friendly neighbor to the North but they have been indirectly screwing us for years. If I lived in Canada I'd do the same.
Also televison likes to show the down side of things, the person who had to sell their vehicle and now has to rely on other means of transportation. But they don't interview the person who can afford to drive 80-90 mph, the very same person whose wasteful consumption affects supply and demand.
It would be interesting to see a "debate" between someone who can no longer afford to drive and has to really pinch pennies to keep their house at 60-65 deg and some fat cat who drives 80 (or more) and keeps the house heated at 80.
Good TV?