We all have to delve deep these days to find the strength and determination to push on through adversity. And no doubt, most people have what it takes. Having spent thousands of years trying to tease reluctant crops out of rain soaked bogs, the Irish are a resourceful and tenacious people - we are genetically programmed for adversity.
However, even the most determined of us falter when the spectre of George Lee looms into our living rooms, his sepulchral voice intoning doom, or when the newspapers shout from the news-stands about a 15% contraction in the economy. Any little green shoots that we might be carefully tending can only wilt under the barrage of the negative Irish media.
Unfortunately, the media is so addicted to bad news that they actually filter out the good news stories.
Example: that headline of the 15% contraction was based on an ESRI report. There were more positive elements in that report. The headline could have just as easily read: Job losses decrease from 1,000 per day to 500 per day. That might have made us feel that the recovery is dawning, albeit slowly, it might have made us feel a little more positive, it might have inspired us try a little harder.
Another Example: Brian Lenihan was going onto a televised political discussion show recently and he said that he wanted to point out the fact that 15,000 people had actually come off the live register in January. However, the producers forbade him from stating this as it didn’t fit in with the tone of the programme (that tone being brutally negative of course)
We are seeing the beginnings of the recovery at Prosperity. Our clients are starting to peep from the bunkers they had fled to post Lehmans; companies are hiring, things are slowly starting to get better. And of course, the Stock Market is steadily rising again. But then again, all the in house media economists say that this is a Bear Rally – something that happens before an even bigger stock market crash.
Who cares what these guys say. They never predicted the credit crash. We could have assembled a group of monkeys and they would have been more insightful than these economists have been. How can they pretend to be so prophetic now?
Morale is what wins battles. Any good commander knows that he has to watch out for the whiner, for that one negative soldier who can drain the fighting will of a whole platoon and inevitably lose the battle. The negative bias of the Irish media is undermining our will – it is hindering recovery.
Jim Murray - Prosperity