Welcome to the Twilight Zone.
Fresh off of Bianna Golodryga’s “tidbits of good news” on ABC’s “Good Morning America” February 27, NBC “Today” show contributor Erin Burnett found her own economic “silver lining” February 29.
“Keep in mind that we did look around for a silver lining, if there was one, to the surge that we’re seeing in prices for oil that will cause record prices at the pump,” Burnett said following a report on a “surge” in oil and other commodity prices. “And that is: some companies are hiring.”
“Companies that do anything related to oil, Natalie, they’re hiring,” Burnett said, addressing anchor Natalie Morales. “[I] talked to the CEO of Fluor yesterday. He said he’s hiring more than 3,000 people in the United States this year. Job creation is what we need right now so we’ll take that if we can get it.”
Burnett’s attempt to balance her reporting by including a little bit of good news was certainly a step in a balanced direction, just one day after she called the difference between recession and slow-down “semantics.” [1]
In their rush to compare current economic conditions to the Great Depression [2], many in the media have ignored the fact that unemployment, currently below 5 percent, is nowhere near the nearly 24-percent Depression-era levels. Kudos to Burnett for pointing out that successful businesses create jobs and benefit the economy.
Burnett’s report was the second in three days to include distinct balance on economic issues. On ABC’s “Good Morning America” February 27, Bianna Golodryga recognized some “tangible tidbits of good news” [3] for the economy in the high-tech industry, which some economists view as an indicator for where the economy at large is headed.
Golodryga also included input from three experts who represented a wide range of views on the economic outlooks, rather than focusing only on negative predictions.