Abstract
This chapter examines how the British national press and public service broadcasting reported on the debate over the rise in the public deficit in 2009. It begins by laying out the background to the rise in the deficit and placing Britain’s debt and deficit in both historical and international contexts. It then presents an analysis of news samples from the national press and the BBC’s flagship television news bulletin, News at Ten. The chapter finds that press reporting was characterised by fear appeals, the presentation of misleading data and false comparisons. BBC reporting provided accurate information about the deficit and its origins but shared with the press a view that the deficit threatened macroeconomic stability. The chapter also found the consistent endorsement of austerity measures, in both press and broadcasting despite their consistent history of policy failure during recessions.
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The Thatcher administration covers the entire period from 1979–1989, the Major administration 1990–1996 and New Labour 1997–2010. Since the different governments changed in the middle of years these estimates are only approximations and are not completely accurate.
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The Zero Lower Bound refers to the fact that (conventional) monetary policy loses its power when interest rates approach zero. This is because rates can no longer be cut in order to stimulate demand and investment in the economy. As interest rates hit the ZLB governments who wish to raise economic activity are forced to rely either on (1) fiscal policy, or (2) unconventional monetary policy such as bond buying (quantitative easing) or measures such as monetising deficits or helicopter money (Reichlin et al. 2013).
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The idea that entrepreneurs, and the private sector more generally, create the wealth that is then consumed by the public sector and other parts of the economy is a key staple of right-wing ideology—see for instance Wright (2015). As the audience study shows (see p. x) it is also a narrative that has been influential in how the public see the process of wealth creation. However as Blagden (2015) notes it ignores how wealth creation is a collective endeavour built on a wide variety of actors in both the private and public sector: ‘The total wealth generated by any business is a product of all of the capital, both financial and human, that has been invested in it. The business owner’s personal labour is part of this, but it is not all. The midwives who bring a company’s workers (including its owners) into the world, the teachers who give its workers (including its owners) their literacy and numeracy, the university academics who refine its high-skilled workers’ (including its owners’) analytical skills and conduct productivity-boosting foundational research, the construction workers providing the infrastructure for business and wider daily life, the doctors who preserve the workers’ (including the owners’) economic effectiveness both prior to and whilst working for the business, the police and military personnel who create a secure environment for all past and present economic activity, and indeed, the company’s own payroll employees are all intrinsic parts of the wealth creation process.’ For a discussion of the role of the state in high-technology based capital accumulation see Mazzucato (2011).
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Berry, M. (2019). The Deficit Debate: Content Studies. In: The Media, the Public and the Great Financial Crisis. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-49973-8_4
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