Are media making the recession worse? What do you think?

I think the media, maybe newspapers in particular, are driving consumer fear that is a significant contributor to our current recession. During the course of my day, I rarely think about the recession, other than to wonder if I'll get my contract renewed this year. Even that is largely out of my hands, so I don't think about it much.

But as soon as I pick up the local newspaper.....here are some headlines from Sunday's newspaper.

• Returning to lessons of the great depression
• Huge cuts likely in [Governor] Perdue's plan
• Unfinished homes worry neighbors
• How will we know when the economy hits bottom?
• No free passes in a deep economic downturn
• Recovery to 'take time' despite hopeful signs
• Economy getting employees down? Try a morale booster
• Job scarcity creating long-distance couples
  
• Digging out of a $3.4 billion budget hole
• Revealed: Who got AIG aid money
• Reading the signs of the bear and bull

And then we read this headline, in the same paper:
Obama: Have 'confidence'

Obama's right. If we can have confidence, then people will begin to spend more, and the economy will benefit. But as long as the media continue to create and foster an atmosphere of fear, who's gonna feel like spending?

Michael Moore said long ago that we're manipulated by fear, generated by the media. I have never felt that truth more than I feel it now. Fear sells newspapers. But what else does it accomplish?

Readers, what do you think?

Keywords:: recession, fear, media-driven recession