Tabitha Southey explains why the news media need to pace themselves in constructing a recession narrative.
I will say in advance that the excerpt below won't make sense standing on its own (Ms. Southey writes that way; not a bad way, it's just her way), so read the column in its entirety. In the meantime, here goes nothing.
It was a time of almost-innocence and pioneer-Barbie-survivalist porn in the Swidinsky basement back then. But our hardship stories had an arc to them that the media have failed to give the current recession.
So far in this crisis, I've been told how to dress, eat, get married, decorate and work out in a recession. The media have predicted, heralded and then bemoaned the return of Velveeta, undersized muffins and child labour - and we're only six weeks in.
The average newspaper reader has gone from learning the benefits of having a carp give them a pedicure to "never have a pedicure again" to "how to serve that same cuticle-eating carp grilled on a bed of steamed lawn clippings" in just over a month.
It's like The Long Winter, if it began with the burning chairs. Or if Page 1 of The Grapes of Wrath presented us with a broken woman breastfeeding a starving man. Or if Cormac McCarthy ... Okay, it just is like Cormac McCarthy.
It's like Bruce Springsteen's The River, but Mary's pregnant in Verse 1 - and eating a donkey.
Pace yourselves, press. This recession may have years to run. Build an arc.