CBS Evening News – Katy Couric – And Gift Baskets

For those of you who have watched the economic series on the CBS Evening News and are in the Gift Basket Industry, don’t be discouraged by it.  Unfortunately, the news media always plays up the negative and the gloom and doom and not the positive.  Viewers aren’t interested in what is good in our world.  It’s the bad that makes the news.

As far as the gift basket industry is concerned, of course there are many suppliers, vendors, as well as gift basket companies having problems in today’s economy.  But the ones that were interviewed for last night’s program (Imperial Foods, Tortuga Rum Cake, Chicago Coffee, Facet Foods) have been around long enough that they have been through this before and survived.  As long as their business practices are sound, they will continue to do so.  It’s too bad that the news didn’t talk about that.

And it’s unfortunate that the newscast interviewer didn’t choose one of the stronger gift basket companies to interview instead of one that is having problems.  There are many of those out there but they don’t make the evening news. 

This kind of publicity doesn’t do our industry any good.  Like any other industry, there are companies that have built their businesses slowly, diversified, planned for the bad times as well as the good ones, and have in place effective business plans and business practices.  They were not blinded by the boom times — just as there are those who didn’t rush out and buy mansions they couldn’t afford with loans they couldn’t pay.

These are the businesses that will survive.  And not only will they survive but they will be stronger as a result of it.  The economy will weed out those that jumped in without doing their research, didn’t plan for the bad times, or believed all those articles and books that tell you how to get rich quick with a gift basket business.  One of the members of an online gift basket board referred to it as being like a Forest Fire weeding out the weak trees and the undergrowth while leaving the stronger trees to survive.  They may be charred a bit as the fire sweeps through but they will be stronger as a result of that survival.

So Katy Couric, CBS Evening News, and all the other reporters of gloom and doom, look further the next time you present a story.  All is not as dire as you’ve made it seem.  But then that kind of story wouldn’t sell.

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