"When we’ve come to a point of Bonds-like coverage redundancy, what is left to write? What more can we say?"

Would the media ever come to a point when the simply stop covering the recession?

By David Mantey, Editor, PD&D

What is left to say? After CNN dubbed Monday, January 27, Bloody Monday it was difficult to go home and watch the news unless the viewer had a hang-up on the job ticker at the top of every hour. I’ll be real, it’s just as hard to write about it.

More than 70,000 joined the unemployment line yesterday, including some of our colleagues at Sprint Nextel (8,000), Texas Instruments (3,400) and Microsoft (5,000), not to mention the hundreds from smaller firms across the nation that weren’t significant enough to have the company logo flashed across the screen.

Do we ever come to a point when we simply stop watching, reading, writing and listening? When we decide that no news is certainly better than Bloody Monday? I suppose it may spurn Bono to put together a remix of the ‘80s U2 classic as part of his personal economic stimulus package.

Too often we are willing to listen to the news, but not hear what the anchor/host is saying. We hop onto news sites and open newspapers, but gloss over the headlines and onto the sports page.

After taking in these monumental numbers, it is hard to ask yourself ‘What can I do?’ In times like these, it’s typical if not expected to put the head down at work and push on with a hound dog’s ferocity. We’re on the trail, and we’ll chase it hard and fast until we lose the scent, nixing that peripheral vision.

Would the media ever come to a point when the simply stop covering the recession?

I know it would be out of step for popular media outlets to abandon the doom and gloom graphics the art department put together before they went live at five. When we’ve come to a point of Bonds-like coverage redundancy, what is left to write? What more can we say? Is it irresponsible to say ‘we must all continue to push on’ every day?

We see more individual profiles on men and women who were able to parlay their skills into new careers or those who have painfully, but successfully changed career paths. (How many maintenance supervisors can actually find a new home in occupational therapy?)

We read more advice articles on obtaining better severance packages and the top ten ways to keep your job. By writing about it every day, it’s the media’s way of putting its head down and producing content on any and all things so we – like everyone else – have exhibits A through ZZZ when we’re sitting at the table across from the advisors asking us, “So what would you say, it is, that you do here?"       

I’m wondering if anyone ever holes up and makes a conscious effort to black out the news – at least until he/she becomes a part of the running tally.

What's your take? Send comments to david.mantey@advantagemedia.com.

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