Reporting On Recession: Journalism, Prediction, And The Economy

Abstract

This paper examines the difficulties that recession coverage poses for journalists and the implications of how news work shapes that subject. It argues that in trying to predict and cover recession, journalists reify this systemic process into an independent entity. Recession comes to be presented as a lurking threat that remains “out there” even when the economy is strong, rising periodically to threaten society when boom becomes bust. Moreover, other themes in reportage - a cyclic view of temporality and tropes of sin/punishment – also encourage economic instability.