ABC Talks Up Non-Existent 'Recession' Eight Times in Three Days

Photo of Scott Whitlock.
By Scott Whitlock (Bio | Archive)
June 25, 2008 - 12:34 ET

The U.S. is not in a recession, but viewers wouldn't know it from watching "Good Morning America." In the span of three days, the ABC program has eight times proposed cures in its "Recession Rescue" segment. On June 24 alone, GMA fretted about the "recession" five times. This is despite the fact that America hasn't had one quarter of negative growth, let alone the two necessary for there to be a recession.

On Tuesday, teasing a story on how bad credit can keep people from getting a job, co-host Robin Roberts previewed "important tips in our Recession Rescue." At the top of 7:30 half hour, she again told audiences to stay tuned for "important tips in this morning's Recession Rescue." Ten minutes later, news anchor Chris Cuomo promised "our Recession Rescue" would give credit advice designed to keep viewers from not missing out on a job. Later in the show, he touted another story on how to save for retirement and labeled it as, that's right, "a good Recession Rescue." Now, certainly, the economy has been struggling and many people are having difficulty, but do words not mean things to the reporters and producers at GMA? Or would they simply shrug their shoulders and say, "Close enough?"

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Even mundane segments received the inaccurate tag. On Monday, Roberts promoted an upcoming segment by awkwardly announcing, "In this morning's Recession Rescue, used car sales are booming. But how do you find a good one and avoid buying somebody else's problem?"

The non-"Recession Rescue" segments on GMA this week have also been hyperbolic. On Wednesday's show, an ABC graphic fretted, "Paying the Bills: How to Survive Economic Crisis." So, the country is dealing with a non-existent "recession" and a crisis? On Monday, Roberts discussed older Americans working longer. That segment contained a graphic that fearfully asked, "No More Retirement? Economy Holds Couple Back?" No more retirement? Even if more Americans are working longer, isn't that phrase a bit of an exaggeration?

CBS's "Early Show" on Tuesday provided similar over-the-top coverage. Co-host Julie Chen worried, "Completing this perfect storm of economic woes, the devastating floods in the Midwest and how they will directly impact food prices."

A transcript of the various teases, segment set-ups and graphics from June 23 to the 25, follows:

6/25/08

7:41am

CHRIS CUOMO: All right. We have the Recession Rescue for you this morning. We keep on talking to you about gas prices. Everyone's trying to sell their SUV. Want to get into one of these new jobs. You know, the smart car. The hybrid. The high mileage type vehicles.

6/24/08

7:21am

ROBIN ROBERTS: And could bad credit cost you a good job? Why what you do in your personal life could impact your professional life. Important tips in our Recession Rescue.

7:30am tease

CHRIS CUOMO: Also, this morning, bad credit. No question if you have bad credit it's gonna hurt you with your credit cards, gonna hurt you with getting a loan. But what about keeping you from getting a job?

ROBIN ROBERTS: That's right. A job? We have important tips in this morning's Recession Rescue.

7:40am

CHRIS CUOMO: When we come back, this woman was on the verge of getting a good job until they found out she had bad credit. How to keep this from happening to you in our Recession Rescue.

7:43am

ABC GRAPHIC: Recession Rescue: Your Job and Your Credit

ROBIN ROBERTS: And now GMA's Recession Rescue. You know that having bad credit makes it hard to do things like buying a home or get a loan. But did you also know it could also cost you a job?

8am tease

CHRIS CUOMO: Listen to this really sad statistic, fewer than 20 percent of people in this country believe they'll have enough money to retire. So, they're going to have to keep working, older and older, it's happening, people are going way past 65. So, today we're going to give you some tips to prepare for your retirement and what you can do if you're already at that age. So, it's a good Recession Rescue.

6/23/08

7:42am

ROBIN ROBERTS: And coming up next, our Recession Rescue. Why buying a used car may not be the secret to saving money. We'll talk about it next.

7:45am

ROBERTS: In this morning's Recession Rescue, used car sales are booming. But how do you find a good one and avoid buying somebody else's problem?

ABC GRAPHIC: Recession Rescue: Getting the Best Deal on Wheels

6/25/08

7:07am

CHRIS CUOMO: No question that bad news for our pocket books is easy to find. Solutions, not as apparent.

ABC GRAPHIC: Paying the Bills: How to Survive Economic Crisis

6/24/08

8:35

ABC Graphic: No More Retirement? Economy Holds Couple Back?

—Scott Whitlock is a news analyst for the Media Research Center.


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Facts are beside the point.

June 25, 2008 - 12:57 ET by Killgrave

Facts are beside the point. The libs NEED "issues" (real or imagined) for the November elections.

In this case, our country "needs" to be in a recession so the Obamessiah can drift down from the heavens and save us all.

He will reinvigorate the economy through massive taxes, regulations, increased cost of labor, re-distribution of wealth, and strangling the processing and consumption of fossil fuels. 'cause any idiot knows that this is the only way to bring a country out of slumping economy.

Do these fools...

June 25, 2008 - 12:58 ET by ontheright

...realize the damage they are doing?

Or are they that self-consumed and ignorant?

otr... These leftists

June 25, 2008 - 13:11 ET by bigtimer

otr...

These leftists want this to happen..the worse the economy, or better yet the more they can portray it this way, the more they think people will vote for the dems...because they can say this all was caused by the big bad repubs...

Agenda is everything for them...

"Never murder your opponent when he is committing suicide." ~ W. Wilson

Do these fools...?

June 25, 2008 - 14:45 ET by pagg30

No and YES!

Baker noted ABC's retirement worries long before..

June 25, 2008 - 13:28 ET by Gary Hall

Dean Baker noted ABC's retirement worries long before.. but as with most of the MSM, I'd bet they decided to keep that from the voters.

ABC Graphic: No More Retirement? Economy Holds Couple Back?

Noted leftist economist (loved by the MSM) Dean Baker, in 2001 (my bold):

"The decision by the Federal Reserve Board and the Clinton Administration not to take any actions to try to limit the run-up of the stock bubble was a mistake that the nation will suffer from for many years to come."

"Even the most cursory review of the data shows that the "new economy" was mostly hype. For the business cycle as a whole, the average GDP growth rate of 3.1 percent was much lower than in the fifties and sixties, and even slightly below the pace of the seventies. Real wage growth averaged less than half a percentage point annually for a typical worker. "

"Furthermore, it was an enormous failure of public policy, not to warn people about the stock market bubble that created this situation. At a macro level, it will be difficult to again pump up the economy in the wake of the collapsing bubble. At the individual level, millions of households now find themselves with insufficient savings to pay for their retirement or their children's education."

"The stock market bubble created a huge amount of unpredicted wealth, which has quickly dissipated. Millions of families have been hurt as a result."

Earlier, Baker had written:

The level of negligence of the nation's political leaders in ignoring the stock bubble exceeds anything since the days of Herbert Hoover."  (note: Ah the years of peace and prosperity. Anyone remember the press inviting Baker on to discuss that one? Think censorship here)

And even earlier in March of 2000, poised the question:

What are you going to tell people who lose much of their retirement savings in their 401K when there's a downturn?

I noted when I read this the first time, in 2001, "well, if a Republican wins the 2001 election, one thing which we can be confident of, is that the MSM will blame the incoming Republican adminstration for it, and will never hold the Clinton administration accountable."

One has to still wonder if any journalist in the MSM has ever addressed the issue in full, or questioned Bill Clinton on the disaster he left to the people of the US, in 2001?

This has been my pet peeve

June 25, 2008 - 15:20 ET by mattm

This has been my pet peeve ever since 1992, when the economy was generally being reported as a disaster...until Slick Boy got elected (with 43% of the vote) -- Then everything was wonderful - even before BJ took office.  But the MSM can deny bias because these things have been covered.

Of course, the preponderance of coverage left the impression that Reagan-Bush was an economic failure, Clinton was a rousing success and W is another typical republican economic failure, and as soon as a DemocRat gets elected, the economy will be portrayed as either "great" if they can get away with it, or as being ruined by Republicans, if things are too bad to fool people.

Republican officeholders should have been pounding away at this for three decades, but they're too chickenhearted to stand up for themselves, so the minute they catch any heat, they run for the tall grass.

As I commented yesterday,

June 25, 2008 - 13:33 ET by motherbelt

As I commented yesterday, after reporting that Alan Greenspan had said we are on the verge of a recession, CNN ran a poll with the question "Are we on the verge of a recession, or are we already there?" as if by majority vote, Greenspan could be overruled.

Shoot 'em all; let God sort 'em out! - Marge Simpson

Rescue from fiction

June 25, 2008 - 14:17 ET by nkviking75

Next week, GMA tells you how to protect yourself when facing an attack by a dragon. 

When you put the clowns in charge, don't be surprised when a circus breaks out.

I'll go you one better...

June 25, 2008 - 14:56 ET by Tim the Enchanter

I'll go you one better...

Cha-ching

June 25, 2008 - 15:24 ET by Crash

So, there I was at the Home Depot, today no less, ... guess what? It was busier than it's been in months. People are spending money! 

MegaDittos at the Dollar

June 25, 2008 - 16:36 ET by Biff McCain

MegaDittos at the Dollar Store. They couldn't keep those packs of 10
cent noodles and Spam on the shelf, so they just set the boxes on the
sidewalk. It gave the strip mall a neat, but messy, Havana ghetto look.

"Burn that mother down." -- Jimmy Ellis

We're probably in a depression.

June 25, 2008 - 15:49 ET by Biff McCain

The only reason we're not technically in a recession, the triple digit
increase in gas prices unfairly skewed GNP figures. Take energy out of
the equation and we're probably in a depression.

"Burn that mother down." -- Jimmy Ellis