But there's no denying that, however badly overall advertising revenue is doing in this most hideous of markets, display advertising is doing that little bit worse.
Display advertising is what funds content in this country - whether print, online or broadcast - so whatever sector of the industry you're in, you should be concerned, simply as a normal member of civilised society.
The giant brains of media are concentrating hard on this topic as we all try to safeguard things we value, whether that's The Observer, Channel 4 News, serious TV drama or local radio. Rupert Murdoch is leading the charge into micro-payments for print content online and many will follow his lead. Even this very publication is reverting to a cover-price strategy. I wish them all the luck in the world.
One reason we're in this mess is that more and more media have moved to free, expecting display advertising to increase to cover the gap. But at the same time we are flooding all advertising markets with more inventory, deflating prices, so the reverse is happening.
Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, spoke at the Royal Television Society's Cambridge Convention last month. He made the bold statement that he believes there is no advertising model that will work in user-generated content, such as YouTube, and probably not in social networking, however valued by users.
A Washington Post article by Bo Peabody added to these thoughts. His view is that social networking and file-sharing services are not media businesses, which generate advertising income within professional content. Rather, he believes they are communications businesses, like mobile phones, where users pay directly - via subscriptions or pay-as-you-go - for the benefit of their functionalities.
Peabody believes most brands are too nervous to appear within the uncontrolled environments that come with social media, so their huge traffic is hard to make money from.
As he pointed out: "A visit from the Pope may attract large attendance, but it's not a great place to make money." Facebook might have a different view and is reported to be about to break even, but Twitter has yet to make a bean.
Maybe this problem will go away when the recession ends. Brands can't live without display advertising forever, milking their malnourished brand assets to the point of starvation.
Even so, let's not risk it.