The Washington Post has produced evidence that journalists influence the way the public views the economy.
The paper sponsored “a survey-based experiment” [1] of “more than 2,500 online respondents” who were “shown a brief news clip before being asked to reply to a series of questions.” The views of respondents on their personal economic well-being were wildly different between survey-takers shown a story on gas prices and respondents shown a story on job growth.
Asked “would you say that you and your family are better off, worse off, or just about the same financially as you were a year ago,” 42 percent of the group that saw the gas price story said “worse off,” while only 29 percent of the group that saw a story on job creation answered that way.
The survey was tucked away in a July 16 Washington Post story [2] on how quickly post-9/11 sentiment devolved into fierce partisanship.
The Post survey is further evidence of the power of slanted reporting to influence public pessimism about the economy. The Business & Media Institute has repeatedly covered the media’s pessimistic reporting on the strong U.S. economy [3], from hype about “record” prices [4] and using images of gas prices [5] far above the nationwide average [6] to the media’s vocal anticipation of a recession [7].