Broadcasters Ignore or Distort Solid Job Report
On February 6, The Media Research Center (MRC)
documented
how ABC and CBS ignored the drop in unemployment. On February 4,
CNNs In the Money spun the good news as bad, playing up how the
jobs created missed economists projections.
CBS Evening News didn't even put the new unemployment number in its
Market Watch bumper which listed just stock market numbers. ABC's
World News Tonight, anchored by Elizabeth Vargas didn't even have
a stock market bumper, wrote the MRCs Brent Baker in the February
6 edition of
CyberAlert.
NBCs Brian Williams found the193,000 new jobs in January to be a
bit below what was forecast, but impressive nonetheless, before
adding that unemployment was now at the lowest it's been since July
2001.
CNNs Jennifer Westhoven categorized the BLS release as a mixed
January job report during a business brief on the February 4
edition of In the Money. Westhoven reported that the unemployment
rate was the lowest in five years but quickly added that the 193,000
jobs added in January was well short of expectations.
But BusinessWeeks Michael Englund
noted in a February 6 online analysis that one missed prediction by
economists does not a lackluster jobs report make. The government
revised November and December 2005 job numbers, adding 81,000 to the
original reports for those months. Additionally, other data from the
January report illustrate the impressive strength of the U.S. jobs
machine civilian employment rose 295,000. The average workweek
held at Decembers upwardly revised 33.8 hours (median 33.8).
Average hourly earnings jumped 0.4% (median 0.3%), with the December
earnings figure revised up to the same hefty growth rate.
In other words, unemployment is down and the employed are working
higher-paying, full-time jobs.
By again ignoring or downplaying good jobs numbers, the media
continue the year-long negative view of the economy that
BMI
recently documented in a January 2006 study. That study showed that
more than half of jobs reports on network news focused on layoffs in
a year of 2 million new jobs, and that roughly 12 percent of those
jobs were ignored as the media failed to report 283,000 jobs
recorded in monthly revisions by the BLS.
In response to BMIs study, CBSs own Anthony Mason admitted to his
networks Public Eye
blog:
For the most part, broad based media has done a lousy job of
explaining the economy to people.
