Grayling Blog

Shirts for the Greeks? How business media handle the crisis.

Posted on 10.05.2010 by Ilka Schwarz

German business media have started campaigns for “Saving Greece”. One example is the Financial Times Deutschland’s T-shirt sale. Prints read “Help Greece”, “Hellas Angels” or “Carry Euros to Athens”, a pun on the German saying “Eulen nach Athen tragen”, meaning “Carry coals to Newcastle”. For each shirt sold, 5 Euros will be sent directly to the Greek Treasury. See www.ftd.de/t-shirt. That is a quite ironic way to comment the financial situation.

In other business dailies industry leaders explain how they plan to help Greece and therefore the eurozone in general. It is a bit strange to read about managers stating they are “going to support Greece by investing 100,000 Euros in Greek government bonds.” Does this really make a difference? For me this looks like doing something just for the sake of doing something. I actually thought it was ironic. But it is not.

No one knows how to handle the current situation. But when you read European newspapers or watch TV, it looks like a battle between the financial industry on the one hand side and on the other side the governments of France, Germany, Spain etc., the European Union and the citizens of the eurozone countries. This seems to be much too simple. Hedge funds and other investors are not the main cause of the problem – even if their speculation against the Euro admittedly does not help the currency.

If you look at it from a communications point of view, many initiatives of the financial industry to increase interest for European investments like Euro funds etc. are being pushed back to second line. The fear foils all efforts to rebuild trust – especially of private investors – in the financial markets.