Are the media to blame for the recession?

In one of the first interviews I conducted for an assignment about the recession, I remember a shopkeeper saying to me, "You're not going to like me for saying this, but I blame the media." The shopkeeper had seen a steady decline in her sales since the end of summer, and I couldn't blame her for wanting to blame someone for it.

On Tuesday evening this week, I went to a lecture with a panel of several journalists and editors of today's papers such as The Guardian and The Financial Times and Robert Peston, the business editor of the BBC(I love how important that sentence sounds, yes!).

On the panel, was also the publisher of Crane's Business Weekly, Arthur Porter, who tried to convince us that "a salesman is not any different to a journalist". I'm absolutely positive that journalists all over the world would disagree with that notion, not least the one sat next to him on the stage who attempted to hide their smirks and guffaws.

The fact that he was invited to participate in the lecture led me to think about the roll in which the media has played during the past 8 months of the recession. I guess journalists are as hated these days as salesmen. I draw the line at any further comparisons.

Peston seemed distracted, and his replies to questions Kevin Anderson of the
BBC asked, seemed awfully disjointed and hesitant. I had to admit I was a little disappointed, this was not the outspoken Peston I had expected.

At the end of the panel discussion, the floor was invited to ask questions. A lecturer raised his hand in request for the mic. "Do you think the media are to blame for the reporting of the recession either, by panicking the public, or reporting it too late?" The question on the tip of many journalists' tongues.

Peston paused. Again my heart sank. Where was this controversial reporter I had expected so much from? Eventually, he cleared his throat and said, "Ah, unfortunately I'm not able to talk much about that because I'm due in court at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning to give evidence on the issue."

I breathed a sigh of relief. One of the world's best reporters was not being a fence-sitter. He was just not at liberty to discuss anything! The very next morning our lecturer told us that he also had the Chairman of the BBC breathing down his neck the whole duration of the evening lecture.

I learned from the FT today that Peston had been 1 of 5 journalists invited by The Treasury to give evidence about "sparking a run on Northern Rock by reporting its troubles and later failing to break the story early enough".

I would like to comment that by today's standards, no journalist can do right. If journalists had reported a recession, they are blamed for the panic that ensues. If they remain silent, the public are outraged that such important information is withheld from them. What is a journalist to do?

Peston was singled out because his reporting "had caused a run by retail customers on the bank, which was subsequently nationalised" to quote the FT. Was that not just caused by the incompetence of the few fat cat executives at the top? As Peston's argument was yesterday, "What led to the collapse of Northern Rock was not the retail run, it was the wholesale run, it was the institutions refusing to fund that bank."

And that, my friends, is your answer.