Let’s say for a second, you were standing in line at your favourite Canadian coffee shop, or in the grocery store or awaiting your turn to pay for your gas fill-up and you saw a newspaper headline on the front page which read: “Canada’s Recession is Over” or “Canada Likely Among First To Recover From Recession.” Would you purchase a copy of that paper to bring home with you?
A headline like that would seem like good news wouldn’t it? You would perhaps want to know more wouldn’t you? At the very least, you would be a little curious. I mean, you’ve been bombarded with sky-is-falling headlines for some months now. Aren’t you in the mood for a little good news?
Well, a headline that appeared in the newspaper this past weekend was the following: “Canada Likely Among First To Recover From Recession.” But that headline was not featured on the front page. It was buried as a three-paragraph story in the bottom left-hand corner of page 2 in the third section of the newspaper.
Here’s why I say that this story was buried. Pages with even numbers (2, 4, 6, etc.) are less-read than odd-numbered pages. Because of how we turn the pages, our eyes focus on the right page first and left page second. That’s why book chapters always start on the right-hand pages. Right-hand pages in the newspaper are prime real-estate: that is to say these are the pages where advertisers would love to be. Right-hand pages get read more than left-hand pages. The chances of readers seeing your ad, if you’re an advertiser, are better on the right page. Left page placement gets a smaller return. But here was the news story, in the bottom-left corner of page 2 in the third section – buried.
I’ll summarize the story: Canada, along with Australia and the UK are expected to be among the first of the advanced economies to emerge from recession and return to normal economic growth. According to Goldman Sachs Global Economics, Canada, Australia and the UK should return to the historical average numbers within the next year. Europe and the USA won’t likely get there for another year after that.
This story would have made a wonderful front-page story. People who have been awaiting a little good news about the economy would have embraced their newspapers. The advertisers who advertised in this edition of the paper would have been advertising to people with a positive mindset. But sadly, that didn’t happen. The newspaper decided that a good news story about the economy wasn’t enough to sell the newspaper that day so they lead with a story of how Calgary’s ring road (a route around the city) may hit $1.5B for a small portion for the road to be built.
Oh, so you know, I got the paper for free at a store that was giving them away. There’s a sign of the economic times huh? They have to give the papers away to get people to read them. Well, I guess sometimes you do get what you pay for.
ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Be careful who you allow your informational influences to be. Remember that the media is hurting right now. Traditional newspapers are going out of business as more people get their news on-line. Newspapers and television stations are having tough times. The traditional media are desperately clinging to models that clearly aren’t working anymore. And they are still doing their news the old way: “if it bleeds it leads” headlines.
The great thing is that, because you have access to so many news outlets these days, you’re smarter than that. Don’t allow yourself to get sucked into the pandemonium vortex of over-the-top headlines and scaremongering. If you want to see good news and some glimmers of hope, you’ll probably have to find another place to get that from - but they are out there.
The truth is, you wouldn’t surround yourself with a very vocal group of whiners, moaners and complainers on a daily basis would you? So why would you allow the same sort of negative influences into your life by what you read? You have the choice of who your friends are. You have the choice of who you listen to too. Make that choice wisely. You have the choice of whether you develop a strong Leadership Attitude or whether you resign yourself to simply being "sheeple" (people who follow like sheep).
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