Oops! CBS Warns of Rough Day for Stocks, but Dow up Big

    You have to wonder if CBS’s wants bad economic news – considering the network is all too eager to warn of the worst. The January 28 “The Early Show” was the latest example – hyping fears for Wall Street on day when the Dow jumped almost 177 points.

     “Hong Kong’s Hang Seng market was down more than 4 percent,” Julie Chen said. “Tokyo’s Nikkei index off about 4 percent. Wall Street may have a rough morning in advance of President Bush's final State of the Union address tonight. We’ll be watching the markets throughout the morning.”

     But you can’t always rely on the Asian markets as an indicator whether or not American stock markets will struggle. After the gloomy forecast from “The Early Show” for the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA [1]) finished in positive territory on January 28 – at the highs of the day, up more than 176 points. The NASDAQ [2] and S&P 500 [3] also finished in positive territory, both up more than 23 points.

    CBS used its incorrect gloomy outlook for the U.S. stock markets as a primer for another recession story.

     “Now, if America slips into a recession, if Americans buy fewer goods, the Chinese will sell less, and they will make less,” CBS correspondent Barry Petersen said. “Now, there is some hope here that when the Federal Reserve, the American Federal Reserve, meets later this week, it will do another cut of interest rates. A way to jump start the American economy and perhaps calm fears here.”

     U.S. markets finished in positive territory based on the expectation the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates again later in the week according to CNBC’s Bob Pisani on the January 28 “Closing Bell.”

     On January 9, “The Early Show” took a story about a Bloomberg economist survey, which the economists polled predicted the U.S. would avert a recession, and reported that economists were pessimistic [4] about the U.S. economy.

     CBS has a reputation for be the worst in economy coverage. In October 2006, a Business & Media Institute study, “Bad News Bears, [5]” showed 80 percent of the full-length stories on the “CBS Evening News” delivered a negative view of the economy – easily the worst of the three broadcast news programs.