Avid readers will remember our rant about how the media seems to be delighting in the prospect of economic downturn, despite the fact that many sectors (including PR) seem to be holding up quite nicely so far. A few weeks ago the FT carried a lovely big headline telling us that no less a luminary than Mervyn King thinks we’re all going to hell in a hand basket (they didn’t actually use that term, but you get the picture). The accompanying newspiece featured the words ‘bleak’ and ‘pessimistic’ repeatedly as well as the uplifting ‘economy likely to come close to a halt’ before admitting in paragraph nine that Mr King’s was not actually predicting a recession after all. This compares quite nicely with a feature in the US magazine, Advertising Age, headlined ‘PR had a good run but agencies expect growth to slow’. The writer flirts with the idea of a negative story but you can immediately tell that his heart just isn’t in it and before you know it he’s flagging up that, despite the US being the home of the credit crunch, the PR industry there might even grow a bit faster this year than it did in 2007 and follows up with a string of upbeat quotes. Here at Hanson, we’d be the last to stick our heads in the sand if things really are turning down dramatically, but we can’t help feeling that the best way to get a recession is to talk yourself into one and vice-versa.
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