To the point: Fatal and dangerous
If you are currently attending industry events and talking to people from the print media industry, then you need to have a healthy dose of optimism to avoid falling into a deep black hole straight away.
If you are currently attending industry events and talking to people from the print media industry, then you need to have a healthy dose of optimism to avoid falling into a deep black hole straight away.
The mood in the industry is depressed - to put it mildly - and tense. With a certain masochistic delight, the event participants are trying to outdo each other with bad news. Everyone wants to have read an even worse economic forecast, everyone knows about even more drastic austerity measures. People toast each other (at least that!), only to develop new disaster scenarios together in conversation. A topsy-turvy world. Until now, people were proud of the fact that they were doing well, but now they are seen as outsiders. To belong to the circle of established industry experts, you can't be doing well. Complaining is part of the trade and has become a status symbol, so to speak.
Such a negative attitude is fatal and dangerous. Self-fulfilling prophecy is the name of the evil. According to Wikipedia, a self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that comes true simply because it was uttered by a social actor and received by others. It is therefore a particular cause of the consequences of which it speaks.
I don't want to talk about optimism for the sake of it. Not at all. That would be negligent in view of the current economic forecasts. But it is equally negligent and dangerous for anyone, whether politician, manager, economic expert or journalist, to constantly point out the expected negative, even catastrophic development scenarios for the economy. Over and over again, like a prayer wheel. The current crisis is the worst in x years and will last longer than any crisis before it. The effects cannot even be estimated yet, and people will have to get used to an uncertain, insecure and gloomy future. This is how the Cassandra cries sound in newspaper articles, in television interviews and in the columns of some experts.
This pessimism is not only poison for consumer sentiment, but also poison for the economy. And it is particularly dangerous for the print media industry, which is always the first to be affected by a crisis - but then things pick up again quickly when the crisis ends. Instead of innovations and new creative ideas to meet the challenges of the reader market, defensive measures are being taken. Costs are being cut, redimensioned and focused. It is doubtful whether the company is prepared for the next upturn in this way.
Pierre C. Meier, Editor-in-Chief
[email protected]
The mood in the industry is depressed - to put it mildly - and tense. With a certain masochistic delight, the event participants are trying to outdo each other with bad news. Everyone wants to have read an even worse economic forecast, everyone knows about even more drastic austerity measures. People toast each other (at least that!), only to develop new disaster scenarios together in conversation. A topsy-turvy world. Until now, people were proud of the fact that they were doing well, but now they are seen as outsiders. To belong to the circle of established industry experts, you can't be doing well. Complaining is part of the trade and has become a status symbol, so to speak.
Such a negative attitude is fatal and dangerous. Self-fulfilling prophecy is the name of the evil. According to Wikipedia, a self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that comes true simply because it was uttered by a social actor and received by others. It is therefore a particular cause of the consequences of which it speaks.
I don't want to talk about optimism for the sake of it. Not at all. That would be negligent in view of the current economic forecasts. But it is equally negligent and dangerous for anyone, whether politician, manager, economic expert or journalist, to constantly point out the expected negative, even catastrophic development scenarios for the economy. Over and over again, like a prayer wheel. The current crisis is the worst in x years and will last longer than any crisis before it. The effects cannot even be estimated yet, and people will have to get used to an uncertain, insecure and gloomy future. This is how the Cassandra cries sound in newspaper articles, in television interviews and in the columns of some experts.
This pessimism is not only poison for consumer sentiment, but also poison for the economy. And it is particularly dangerous for the print media industry, which is always the first to be affected by a crisis - but then things pick up again quickly when the crisis ends. Instead of innovations and new creative ideas to meet the challenges of the reader market, defensive measures are being taken. Costs are being cut, redimensioned and focused. It is doubtful whether the company is prepared for the next upturn in this way.
Pierre C. Meier, Editor-in-Chief
[email protected]
