The Changing Tone of Western Media’s Coverage of The Global Economic Crisis

As a keen observer of the media, I find the slightly subtle changes in the tone and style of western media reportage of the global economic recession very positively interesting. I remember when the economic crisis really began to bite and seriously accumulate economic and human casualties (between December 2008 and early March 2009). The western media was awash with stories about the probable collapse of the global economic system. Some went as far as giving audience to pundits who claimed that capitalism was finally failing, and that Karl Max had been right all along!

But now, after some of the panic has subsided, the media has started to the see that the world as we know it may not be coming to end after all. Yes, the rules and regulations that govern global business may have to be redrawn, but western civilisation and the economic system underpining it was not going down the drain.

The media therefore slowly, but perceptibly, became more positive and upbeat in its coverage and analysis of the global economic slowdown and the efforts being taken to tackle it. So, from “World in Crisis”, CNN changed the title of its coverage of the crisis to “Road to Recovery”. More airtime and media space was devoted to “experts” and “business leaders” who were estimating that the crisis would soon “bottom-out” in x months, and that the global economy may start going into positive territory by Quarter X in year Y. Richard Quest, my favourite personality on CNN devoted virtually a whole episode of his “Quest Means Business” programme to the idea that so-called “green shoots” of economic recovery were beginning to show, that the global economy was slowly beginning to come out of the recession.

I personally was starting to get really tired of the constant barrage of bad news via the media, and am relieved that things seem to be looking up. I just hope the new optimism being chorused across western media is in line with the reality on ground. It would indeed be a huge shame if this was not the case.

Meet Lai Mohammed – The Hardest Working Man in The Action Congress

It’s difficult to listen to radio or open the newspapers in Nigeria today, without listening to or reading about Alhaji Lai Mohammed at work. The National Publicity Secretary of the Action Congress political party never fails to use every opportunity to get the manifesto and opinions of his party across to the public via the media.

Mohammed has commented on every gaffe of the Obasanjo and Yar’Adua administrations. From OBJ’s third term agenda, to the Yar’Adua’s alleged ill health, the bungling of the 2008 budget and the missteps with the 2009 appropriation and Maurice Iwu’s INC’s Im(?)partiality – nothing that has happened in the polity in the last three years has escaped Iwu’s attention.

He’s become such a force that even the security agents of government now pay "special attention" to him. If only the other members of the Nigeria political class could take their jobs as seriously as he does his.