Comments on: A grade 3 back and sides and a trim on top http://www.showmenumbers.com/economy/a-grade-3-back-and-sides-and-a-trim-on-top This is the Blog of Adam Parker on numbers and relevance Sat, 11 Feb 2017 16:09:05 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.42 By: AdamParker http://www.showmenumbers.com/economy/a-grade-3-back-and-sides-and-a-trim-on-top/comment-page-1#comment-138 Thu, 30 Oct 2008 20:26:33 +0000 http://www.showmenumbers.com/?p=100#comment-138 Hi Fuzzee (is it ok to shorten this by the way?)

I think there are a number of separate issues here.

1.Reporting language
2.Media coverage
3.Behaviour

There are probably a load more as well…

I agree with you that 2 and 3 have a potential for chicken and egg and also that media coverage can fuel particular behaviours that then become potentially self perpetuating. Would Northern Rock have collapsed if the media hadn’t been filled with images of queues implicitly asking viewers the question “why aren’t you here as well?”

However my point about language was that at least when reporting what is happening the language should be consistent and not put more fuel to that fire.

Oh and I obviously need to look into adding the functionality to allow addition of style :)

]]> By: fuzzeelogik http://www.showmenumbers.com/economy/a-grade-3-back-and-sides-and-a-trim-on-top/comment-page-1#comment-132 Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:42:03 +0000 http://www.showmenumbers.com/?p=100#comment-132 fair point…but let me ask you this (at the risk of questioning generations of media coverage and therefore generations of research into what people actually want to read) would the financial crisis that we seem to be heading toward be actually made worse due to the the relentless media coverage?

In terms of house prices which seems to be the most high profile, following the law of supply and demand, nothing affects house prices more than the number of people willing to buy or sell, so surely any news that reduces the number of people willing to buy is only going to fuel the aforementioned crisis in the media and make it worse. (chicken and egg situation here I know)

Is there any point in talking about media coverage’s use of language that is over and above the the fact that it is generally negative and of no positive value?

Is there is a happy medium between (generally negative but usually truthful) news and (generally positive but subjective) PR (from an informing POV not a crisis handling POV)

wish I could have an italics button for the ‘truthful’ part of that last sentence about the news!

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