Well done the BBC. Well done Radio 4. Well done the Today programme.
Yesterday we heard that Northern Rock was getting an emergency loan to ensure (insure) that they don’t go belly up in the fall out from the US mortgage crisis. Everyone that knew what they were talking about said that this was prudent and people had nothing to worry about. Time and again the question was asked by John Humphries et al, should people be worried – “NO”. Should they panic? “NO”, really, are you sure? “YES”. Hmmmmmmmmmm. Same questions, same answers over and over. The trouble is that the BBC could smell (create) a story here and left everyone far from reassured.
I wake up this morning to find that there has been a panic amongst NR customers who are taking their money out in droves (some sort of a wheelbarrow I presume) causing more panic and, ultimately more problems for NR and it’s customers. Even today the story from NR is don’t panic. However some anal reporter at the BBC has calculated that they will probably, maybe, possibly (actually) be ok if everything went belly up.
Financial crisises are caused by people getting jittery and panicking.
So well done the BBC, you have your story, you have your financial panic, you have your people queueing outside NR branches with their droves in hand.
And if you play your cards right you will have a bankrupt financial institution and a lot of people seriously out of pocket.
A triumph for british journalism.