Some cool financial crisis images:
Bankruptcy Filings…
Image by MyEyeSees
This information is from a blog, typical of how information in The Great Financial Crisis is being covered by new media. Credit Slips, where this information comes from (below) is a blog produced by seven academics who "will use this space to do what we like to do when we get together–discussing and debating what does happen and what should happen when consumers and businesses borrow money."
Chapter 11s Rise 62% in 2008
…individuals filed 19.5% of all the chapter 11 cases in 2008. Many of these chapter 11s represent the lost dream of a small business owner and the jobs that went with that dream.
Bankruptcy filings in 2008 rose 32% as compared to 2007 according to data from Automated Access to Court Electronic Records (AACER). There were just under 1.1 million total bankruptcy filings in 2008 as compared to 827,000 in 2007. Those figures count all bankruptcy filings. The increase is attributable not only to the worsening economic conditions, especially the unavailability of further credit, but also to the generally increasing trend of bankruptcy filings from their nadir just after passage of the 2005 bankruptcy law.
Feb 7 Drudge Front Page: Stimulus Bill Compromise Story
Image by MyEyeSees
As part of my media study on the Financial Crisis, I looked at four front pages to see how the graphics and headlines played the story of the Stimulus Compromise on February 7th. Because I see this as being the big story of the week, with anticipation continuing until the bill passes, I wanted to compare and contrast both the graphics and the headlines from four media: the NYTimes, WaPo, HuffPo and Drudge. I used the printed front page for the old tangible media outlets of WaPo and NYTimes as they come from a tradition of using photo illustrations with professional photographs taken as news illustrations of the story, a long standing tradition. The new media online outlets of HuffPo and Drudge do not come from this print tradition so they don’t pay for top photojournalist coverage but must come up with alternative ways to illustrate their headlines. In this case NYTimes and WaPo used photos and HuffPo and Drudge used graphics. NYTimes, HuffPo and Drudge used the illustration/photo to depict opposites or two sides. WaPo’s photo depicts a trio in the halls of Congress making an announcement.
The story was the lead story with top of the page headlines in all four newsmedia. WaPo and NYTimes subscribe to the old style of caps and lowercase for headlines. The new media outlets of Drudge and HuffPo use all caps for the lead story, with the headlines centered beneath the graphic. Online headlines were shorter for WaPo and NYTimes as compared to their print version. In the WaPo and NYTimes, the top photo online was not connected to the Stimulus story but reflected another top story. The photos on the print front page versions accompanied the story on the linked page of both NYTimes and WaPo.
NYTimes: As Jobs Vanish, Senetors Reach Deal on Stimulus (print)
Senators Reach Accord on Stimulus Plan as Jobs Vanish (online)
WaPo: Bipartisan Deal Eases Way For Stimulus Bill in Senate (print)
Compromise Eases Way For Stimulus in Senate (online)
HuffPo: BIPARTISANSHIP…BARELY
Drudge: STIMULUS DEAL REACHED: 0-827,000,000,000.00
The graphic that Drudge uses, of a tornado and lightening looms large and white in a dark night. The idea of this iteration of fear captures the crisis of what, for many, is an uncontrollable catastrophic event (this week Obama used the term catastrophe in speaking about what might happen to the economy if the bill does not pass).
Full links to all front page screenshots and stories are in my blog post Which Graphic Says It Best? Stimulus Bill Compromise in Media…
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