A 'D Word' update on the 'R Word'

About two weeks after this was posted in November, a government panel annointed the recession as a recession and it immediately became the "worst since the Great Depression." But here we go again. For all the same reasons, "near-depression" would aptly describe the situation in early 2009 but will not be used.

By January, 30 percent of American adults believed we were in a depression. Now it's March and things are much more serious. And on March 10 the Rasmussen poll showed 53% of Americans think we're heading into a 1930s kind of depression in the next few years. I think the pollsters may be pressured to shy away from the "are we there yet" question, just as the press feels pressure to jack our chins up.

And just as last fall, a flimsy standard is used: 20 percent unemployment per the Great Depression. Maybe we're parcing our terms here, but can't there be a depression that's not so great? Say, 14 percent unemployment? That wouldn't be so great. And it's more than a dip, a downturn or a dilly of a pickel we're in. Lowercase-d depression is within reach, thus near. So the proper term on the economic gloom barometer: As of mid-March, near-depression. Majority rules.




A yardstick of just how timid our press has become is the very existence of "The R Word" as a synonym for recession, the state of our economy that most people know we have been in for some time.

By uttering "the R word" and giving a wink, the media are essentially saying: "Isn't it cute how we don't say 'recession?'"

Well no, it's not. Because it reflects the way they have been goaded into abandoning their role as truth-tellers, their duty to call 'em as anyone can see 'em.

More recently the Bush administration's media handlers made it clear they didn't want the word "bailout" applied to the bailout of underachieving capitalists by the working public. They wanted the word "relief" applied, and some journalists gave it serious consideration. The Associated Press responded, to its credit, by putting out a small sidebar defining the two terms and making it clear to anyone who can read that it is a bailout, just as it was for Chrysler in the 1970s. Much of the press has since called a bailout a bailout on a consistent basis.
But Wikipedia provides a pretty clear summary of why news organizations can't screw on the courage to do their job with "recession."

A recession is a contraction phase of the business cycle, or "a period of
reduced economic activity." The U.S. based National Bureau of Economic Research
(NBER) defines a recession more broadly as "a significant decline in economic
activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally
visible in real GDP growth, real personal income, employment (non-farm
payrolls), industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales." A sustained
recession may become a depression.

Some business & investment glossaries add to the general definition a rule of thumb that recessions are often indicated by two consecutive quarters of negative growth (or contraction) of gross domestic product (GDP). Newspapers often quote this rule of thumb, however the measure fails to register several official (NBER defined) US recessions.

So what the media have done instead is to use forms of the word recession when others do in directly quoting them, or use variations like "approaching a recession" or "recessionary."

The absurdity of this is has become so obvious it has to be wiped out of our eyes, as the stock market, unemployment and other indicators plunge in ways not seen in 14 years, then 26 years, etc. Because during those spans there have been what everyone knew and history recorded as recessions: the Reagan recession, the recession that toppled Bush I, etc. — and as the news reports state, the indicators are worse now than during those times. Yet the media cling to the standard handed down from the White House and a desperate Wall Street — the one, as cited above, that "fails to register several official (NBER defined) US recessions."

Why is this? Do the media feel a patriotic duty to bolster public confidence, as in time of war when they have historically snuffed information at the request of our government? In this case cooperation was politically tainted when there was a campaign for the presidency recently, because it understated the reality of the past two years. Yet it was so effective that even the opposing presidential candidates dutifully avoided saying "recession."

The press has no such cheerleading duties for the economy, yet today's journalism seems to take it on. It's part of a general head-nodding approach to accepting handouts rather than reporting reality, and it's dangerous.

It seems to have become a reflex to run with what they're given as corporate ownership increases job reductions in the media, and the reliance on "official" sources increases. As everyday people look around themselves and recognize things for what they are, they are less inclined to trust the "trusted sources of information," leading to continuing declines in news consumption, as opposed to commentary, a corresponding need for still more staff reductions, and a willingness to do even less valuable work.

In other words, the cancer feeds off itself.

Bob Datz is a marketing communications consultant and remains a journalist at heart and in fact. Learn more at www.datzmedia.com