• by Jack Feuer , September 24, 2008

What in the seven circles of Hell is wrong with you people?

There are God knows how many trolls in big newsrooms and small bedrooms who report on or blog about the events of the day. Is it too much to ask you to understand the most momentous business story you'll ever cover?

As for the public, including those of us who make a living in marketing communications, would it kill us to think about what to do when facing economic catastrophe?

We have an infinite capacity to ponder the Alaskan hick chick's go-go boots; whether the skinny guy in the other traveling circus is a Muslim Manchurian Candidate (Obama's definition of what makes someone "rich" certainly sounds like he was brainwashed); or how Jerry Seinfeld hustled $10 million to do two Microsoft commercials.

But when it comes to, you know, our future--not so much.

Apparently, the looming annihilation of our entire economy is not the right time for journalists to use words like "crash," or "meltdown" in their stories, as The New York Times reports. (Truth is no longer fit to print.)

And it seems there's nothing more going on here that affects marketing than "Economic Woes Make Firms Rethink Ads," as The Wall Street Journal notes. (That daily did email me a solicitation to subscribe for only $99 a year, noting: "This may be your only opportunity." No kidding.)

The faux newsmen like Colbert, Stewart and Maher, inevitably, are telling it like it is. But among those who are supposed to know how business works and its implications for ordinary people, I found only Jonah Bloom's column in Ad Age. It was headlined "Self-Absorbed Media Missing the Biggest Stories of Our Time."

I guess it takes a Brit to recognize the end of an empire.

There is more at stake here than what kind of ad campaign AIG is running, how global ad spend is faring, or whether there should be an ad icon parade during Advertising Week. Our country is dying.

I say it's up to ad agencies, media shops and PR firms to counsel their clients on how to help consumers weather the coming storm. Let's see spots that don't shy away from reality, instead of pitching us employee discounts on trucks that get 2 miles to the gallon. Let's talk about communications plans that use network and cable TV--still the biggest bully pulpits--to counsel folks on how to stay solvent, rather than schemes that waste money on this week's hot social network.

Every person in the U.S.--that would be your customers--is in dire peril, and savvy persuaders can help us pull together and survive. Well, except for investment bank executives and mortgage brokers. To paraphrase one of Samuel L. Jackson's most memorable lines: "Yes, they deserve to die, and I hope they burn in hell."

Journalism has sunk too low to rise to the occasion. But marketing that attempts to be part of the solution, for once--instead of exploiting the problem--couldn't hurt.

It might even help.

Otherwise, see you all on the bread line, people.