Business Coverage

In 2005, I sensed that journalists in general prefer to call this time of the year in commerce that of "holiday shopping" instead of "Christmas shopping," but that when it came to people losing their jobs, they preferred to describe layoffs as relating to "Christmas." My instincts have been proven correct for two years running, as you can see below from the results of three different sets of…

Steve Fraser might look mild-mannered, but when it comes to economic doomsaying, he is the Rocky Marciano of recession, the Tiger Woods of turndown, the David Beckham of depression.Speaking of bending one, Fraser's LA Times column of today, "Symptoms of an Economic Depression," twists U.S. economic data into a harbinger of impending doom. Fraser begins by falsely claiming that "no one wants to…

Oh, how Old Media wants a recession. Too bad the economy isn't cooperating.The latest Institute for Supply Management (ISM) report on the Manufacturing Sector, covering about 15% of the non-government economy, was just released this morning, and led as follows:Economic activity in the manufacturing sector expanded in November for the 10th consecutive month, while the overall economy grew for the…

When business goes green, interest groups get mean. National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" gave a report November 30 on misleading "green" products, charging companies with "The Six Sins of Greenwashing." "You may have thought they were environmentally friendly just because the product says so, but some environmentalists think you're being ‘greenwashed,'" said host Steve Inskeep. "Is one of…

So that's why they call it "the graveyard shift."There's little the MSM likes more than to report the latest thing that's bad for us. Today's news brings a double-header of doom: night shifts and salt.First, the AP reports that the UN's World Health Organization will soon list working the night shift "as a 'probable' cause of cancer."Then Reuters informs us that the Center for Science in the…

Economic growth for the third quarter, which was estimated at 3.9% a month ago, was revised upward to 4.9% by the government's Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The BEA announcement is here. This of course explains why a Google News search I just did on "recession" has hundreds and hundreds of articles talking about a possible recession, including 481 in the first 20 listings (/sarc). Key…

As the Christmas shopping season went into full swing in 2005, I sensed that journalists in general have a strong preference for using the term "holiday shopping" instead of "Christmas shopping" when covering business and commerce, but that when it came to people losing their jobs, they preferred to describe layoffs as relating to "Christmas." My instincts have been proven correct, as you can see…

Of course, the expectations game can be frustrating, and we won't know for sure until the actual report is released Thursday at 8:30 a.m. But there appears to be remarkably good economic news ahead. Naturally, it is getting the barest of coverage from an Old Media business press corps that seems intent on talking the economy down. First, a week ago Monday, MarketWatch's Greg Robb, in an article…

For years, NewsBusters and its parent, the Media Research Center, have been reporting on the disparity in economic coverage by mainstream media outlets during the Clinton and Bush administrations. In the past seven years, economic data that would have been praised when Bill Clinton was in the White House has continually been presented as recessionary, or even depression-like. With that in…