Who's To Blame?

An interesting story hitting the internet this week...
It was an Associated Press story about media coverage of the market meltdown. A survey conducted by Abrams Research found that a majority of journalists surveyed (62%) felt the media dropped the ball in reporting the story. The journalists surveyed were mostly from organizations such as CNBC, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and others. One member was particularly critical of himself, "I blame myself in part, he said. "I wrote about many of the components of the bust, ... but failed to put it together and see how really, really bad things would get."
It brought back memories of another time that the media had to deal with an economic meltdown. It happened in my budding days as a young radio news reporter. It was the 1980's and lots of Abilenians were leaving their jobs to go to work for Nucorp, an oilfield supply company. These were folks that had spent years building careers. Abilene's economy (and that of the State of Texas, for that matter) , was booming and it was all based on oil and gas. Yet, in the back of my mind, there was this nagging question: what happens if all of this ends? "End, it's never going to end", we were assured. There's enough oil and gas in Texas to last thousands of years. Suddenly, there was a glut of oil worldwide, and the oil boom went to bust. It was like someone throwing a bucket of cold water on you when you've just gotten out of bed.
We in the media didn't do a whole lot of business reporting back then: at least, not like we should have. Mostly we did stories about grand openings and ribbon cuttings. A lot of our news came from the chamber of commerce and news releases prepared by PR firms. But, that was okay because folks liked it that way. They didn't want to hear negative news: just "good" news. When the bottom fell out of the oil market, we all learned a valuable lesson. We found out just how interconnected we really were, from the banks, to the suppliers, to community non-profits that enjoyed the windfall the industry brought. We weren't looking at the bigger picture (and even if we were, no one wanted to hear about it).
There is an old adage that says what we fail to learn from history, we are doomed to repeat. In an age when economic realities are forcing more and more media outlets are cut staff and delegate their reponsibility to others, one can't help wonder who'll be asking the bigger questions, such as "What does it all mean?"
Those are my thoughts. What are yours?

Downing Bolls