Tomorrow's Business Today
The “Oh Dear” approach to the news
A view from the local boozer, from a chap I’ve not seen for ages. Where have you been? He asks.
Don’t come out much lately, I say. I prefer to drink at home.
How have I been? Well there was this, that, the other. Not too great, thanks.
Your problem, he says, is you’re always reading the news. He reckons he gave up two years ago and has never felt better.
This wasn’t an economic decision – he can afford the news. But what started as an experiment – to see if he became noticeably stupider – has become a lifestyle choice.
The stuff he needs to know seeps through anyway. As for everything else, well, it is nearly all sad and beyond his control. Why even bother to consume it?
Adam Curtis, the TV documentary maker behind the brilliant Power of Nightmares (and much else besides) calls this the “Oh Dear” approach to news.
Even supposed group protests have a decidedly individualistic streak. “Not in MY name”, say protestors, some of whom may be on stilts (why?).
Mobile phones have encouraged us to slink off into private worlds where we can play games, chat to mates and laugh at cats falling into toilets.
There is absolutely nothing individuals can do about war, famine, climate change, or Donald Trump, all of which seem to be getting worse. So they sink into private lives and shrug off everything else.
I can’t really take that approach, I said. Nah, he goes. If I read as much news as you do, I’d drink at home too.
Circulation figures for newspapers and viewing figures for TV news suggest my friend with the lager and lime top is far from alone.
A lot of perfectly bright people have stopped bothering with the news, for two reasons. 1) It is upsetting. 2) They don’t know which bits of it to believe.
For the hack and flak trades this stuff is fundamental. If enough people decide everything I write is depressing and everything you send out is meaningless, we’ve got a problem.
Since the PR trade is supposed to be taking the upside view of what is occurring, this trend ought to be better for you than us.
Or we could try and make things better, I suppose.
Press release of the day
How much headroom has the Chancellor got for tax cuts in the budget on March 6? Not much, says this from ING. Indeed, less than he hoped for a few weeks ago.
A 1p cut in income tax costs about £7bn, so he could perhaps go for a 2p cut, but that wouldn’t leave him much room to do anything else.
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