If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound?

To twist that famous question around, if a government or an economy or a company is falling and there is no media around, does anybody hear or know?

OK – that’s a stupid question as of course any of those situations would impact on a whole range of people and they will know it. You would have to wonder though about the extent of the impact and peoples' knowledge if there were no mass media.

There are people in the country today that are little or no worse off than they were a year ago. While there are a painful number now out of work or facing that prospect, there are also still a lot of people working. There are also many more in work now than was the case in Ireland in the not terribly distant past.

On the face of it those people have money to spend and should, without being smug or conceited about their good fortune, feel good about themselves and their circumstances.

You won’t find too many that are though. Even consumers not directly affected by recession are now cautious about future planning and certainly about spending.

I’m not saying that ‘it’s the media’s fault’ – that’s a lazy cry – but there is no doubt that the innate need of the media as a genre to grab people’s attention with ‘new’ developments and ‘stand out’ opinion has projected issues in the economy way beyond only those directly impacted.

In the past economic and business affairs were generally a topic of specialist interest for the mass media, covered by specialists to be consumed by those with a special interest.

Today business is front page, top story news, no longer the preserve of the specialists. That creates a new interest in the public which in turn draws the media to cover it more.

The interest of one feeds the need of the other and vice versa and in jig time that dynamic becomes the driver of the coverage as much as, if not moreso than, any actual event that occurs to be covered.

It poses an interesting question as we, as a country, try to identify the bottom of our fall and the possible first step(s) to rehabilitation.

There is no doubt this country has problems to solve and that we can’t move on until they are solved. It is clearly up to those in positions of responsibility in politics and business to take the steps required to solve the primary problems.

Their actions alone won't be enough. Society in general won’t know it can move on until we are hearing, clearly and consistently, through the media that those problems either have been solved or on the way to being solved.

Somewhere along the line those in responsibility in the media will have to take a view that explaining the existence of the solutions is as important as highlighting the problems.

To take a twist again out of the saying we started with, the rebuilding of the country and its economy won’t be heard unless there is a media there to make sure we hear the story of what has happened.

It may be that the media up to now has not seen that as its role… but a lot of other things in society have changed because they have to and no one now can avoid that obligation to face change.

Tradition, convention and precedent have their places, but if they are to take a place now as leaders in society, decision makers in our media have to put convention in its place and take a more progressive perspective that in time will add to rather than challenge their standing.