We're drowning in too much information.
About everything. But especially about the financial underpinnings of our way of life.
I'm a journalist. Have been for 35-plus years. I know that getting information out is not just important, but essential to making sure we are in some level of control of our destinies. It's the basis of what I have been doing for most of my working life. Besides which, it has given me a living.
Information is power. Spreading information gives power to more people. Making it absolutely available means that the power is with all the people.
Or does it? On another side of the coin, is it desirable? Maybe it opens up more possibility of manipulation? Or, less conspiratorially, mistakes?
Reporters, by the nature of what we do, need new stories every day. Even several times a day. On a slow news beat, we look towards possibilities. To avoid being bollicked by our News Editors. Who in turn want to avoid being bollicked by their Managing Editors. Who in turn ...
(Hmm—my iPad's word processor doesn't seem to understand the word 'bollicked'.)
Say, in a newsroom in America, a financial reporter looks at the situation in Ireland where (there's a potential that—in an as yet hypothetical situation) Ireland's economy has found itself exposed (again) to a (possible) substantial difficulty.
So our financial reporter fiddles around with some figures, comes up with possibilities, adds a dash of speculative future (hey, this is what the global financial market system does all the time, so there's nothing intrinsically wrong with this, right?). He comes up with a proposition that Ireland is (once more) on the brink of financial collapse (take out the round brackets in the par above and you have it). He files it and goes home (or to his favourite Irish bar on Wall Street).
The story is read by an intern in one of the financial rating agencies—Fitch, Moodys, Standard & Poor's. Take your pick (and ignore the wandering apostrophe). He hasn't yet got to the Irish bar, because he needs to provide a report before he can go. It is a given for somebody in his game that good news is not a valid report—financial rating agencies must be feared, or nobody takes them seriously.
On the basis of the 'potential/hypothetical/possible' but now 'factual because it is published' story, our intern downgrades Ireland's sovereign credit rating by a letter and then heads off to have an Obama-certified sub-standard pint of Guinness in the Irish bar.
The Wall Street Journal picks up the downgrading, and makes it a front-page, third column, below-the-fold item. The story is moved on by the news services. In most EU countries, they have much more to be involved with than stuff from Ireland, but it might make a 'kicker' for the next day.
The Night Editor on Morning Ireland on RTE Radio One hasn't yet realised that there's a jaded public out there in relation to Ireland's financial problems. He or she locks on to the latest financial bashing of the country. It's bad news, therefore 'good' news.
The next day the programme leads with the story. A brace of standard commentators—tame economist and on-the-make politician—are given space to fill. What they say becomes lead on the subsequent nine o'clock News. An hour later, Pat Kenny has a couple of different 'experts', working to make the matter more grave because otherwise nobody will hear them again. By the time the News at One broadcasts its version, Joe Duffy has Liveline listeners cued up to offer 'real people' views. Drivetime gets the hind tit, but that doesn't stop it from sucking furiously to get a last pull of the witch's milk before the country gets into Sport.
That evening, the Taoiseach, or maybe the Minister for Finance, has to deny—from an opposition query in the Dail—that Ireland is in even deeper financial manure. Denial is how small stuff gets longer legs.
What had been a mere 'kicker' in the European news channels now gains traction. It moves up the news schedule. Financial pundits are trollied out across the TV business spectrum. By the late evening, Ireland is further in the financial mire by a quantum.
A late desk American reporter picks up the story. It is something that will save him at his deadline ...
Nationally, and globally, that's possibly why we are where we are.
If we turned in our iPhones for smoke signals, we might be better off.
