MRC's Free Market Project just released its first major study of 2006, "Hit Job: Networks Emphasize Layoffs In A Year of 2 Million New Jobs." Dan Gainor and R. Warren Anderson found:
More than 2 million new jobs were created in 2005 but that wasn’t the story presented by the evening news. The three broadcast networks downplayed strong growth and, instead, emphasized negatives such as corporate layoffs and outsourcing in more than half the stories about jobs or unemployment. As Trish Regan of “CBS Evening News” put it in the July 20 broadcast, “Twenty-five thousand layoffs and more on the way. I’m Trish Regan with why the jobs picture is looking very ‘pink’ these days.”
Colored reporting like that has left the Bush administration’s economic record black and blue. With the president’s upcoming State of the Union address on January 31, the economy will come under fresh scrutiny, so it is essential to separate the facts from the media spin. More than 4.6 million jobs have been added since May 2003 – 31 straight months of positive job growth. Unemployment dropped down to 4.9 percent, lower than the average of all three recent decades.
