Crisis? What crisis? But it's great TV

Abstract

Sky TV business and economics editor Wilson writes that City commentators may have no idea what's going on, or when it will end, but the credit crunch has brought a new element to television coverage: pictures. "But suddenly, for once, here was the real thing - anxious punters queuing around the block to get their money out of Northern Rock. This was not supposed to happen. But it was happening, not in a banana republic but in a leading industrialised country whose administration had been selling the "financial stability" story for ten years. This was in a town near you. The story had marched right in through the front door, to you and your family. And that really is the nub of the whole affair. A year ago the credit crisis was still very much business-page material, mere back-of-the-book stuff. The journalistic task, then, was to find the first indicators that a financial problem had spilled into the real economy. Well, we found them."