Economy

Some financial indicators took somewhat of a shock over swine flu fears on the first day after the swine flu fears were realized. "But on Wall Street today and overseas, travel-related stocks took a beating over flu fears," NBC correspondent Tom Costello said on the April 27 "NBC Nightly News," reporting that U.S. airline stocks were hit hard, down a little over 8 percent on the news. Costello…

Looks like Washington Post Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt sort of put his foot in his mouth -- or his pen as the case may be -- in an April 27 editorial where he as much as called America's older workers "lumbering" and less talented than "younger, nimbler" employees. In a nation that has one of its largest blocks of citizens in the "older" category, those over 40, it seems like Hiatt just…

Remember the outrage over the compensation paid out to AIG executives earlier this year, after the federal government had to extend a lifeline to troubled insurance provider? Will the executives of a media company receive the same treatment - should they get their wish and receive help from the government for their company? There's a little-publicized story that the parent company of The…

The swine flu story has captured the news cycle for three days and counting now and that's perpetuating the hysteria, according to Fox News Channel's Brit Hume.  Hume appeared on the FNC's "The Live Desk with Trace Gallagher" April 27 and blasted the media in general for hyping the swine flu story 24/7. "I realize it's been a slow weekend in terms of news," Hume said. "The president went out…

"The liberal media deserve the Tammy Wynette Award for their coverage of Obama’s radical agenda, as they continue to devotedly stand by their man," quipped Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell in an April 27 statement.[see bottom of post for full press release] "For the pro-Obama liberal media, the Obama honeymoon is nowhere near over," Bozell argued, reacting to…

It's a response that might incite laughter, as it did from conservative pundit Monica Crowley and MSNBC paleocon talker Pat Buchanan. According to Newsweek's Eleanor Clift, the current problems facing the country and President Barack Obama are due to capitalism. Clift, appearing on the syndicated April 26 "The McLaughlin Group" gave Obama high marks for his first hundred days and said…

Separating personal feelings from straight-up journalism is something MSNBC anchors have had trouble with in the past, and David Shuster is no exception. During MSNBC's daytime news coverage on April 24, Shuster interviewed Bill Himpler of the American Financial Services Association. The discussion was nominally about the legislation sponsored by Sens. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N…

If CNBC on-air talent has really had their hands tied by General Electric and NBC management on criticizing the current administration's economic policy, you couldn't tell it from watching Rick Santelli and Larry Kudlow.  On CNBC's April 24 "The Call," Santelli expressed his frustration with an overreaction by the government to solve the financial crisis when Kudlow asked him about the expansion…

On Friday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez asked Democratic Senator Chris Dodd about efforts by Congress to pass legislation that would punish credit card companies for charging higher fees and interest rates: "Senator, yesterday President Obama says that he wants legislation to stop credit card abuses. This is something that you have been pushing for, for years. And I don't have to…

In addition to his abuse of the word "exploration" and his false claim that he has "often said" that he supports additional drilling for oil and natural gas within the U.S. and off its shores, President 'Prompter Barack Obama misstated the timing of his tale of a pioneering oil man by a "only" a century (picture at right is from "The Story of Oil in Pennsylvania").Beyond that, his fond recounting…

Instead of providing any suggestion President Barack Obama's hectoring of credit card company executives, with the not-so-subtle threat of further regulation, is an improper strong-arm tactic, the network evening newscasts on Thursday night hailed Obama's efforts to “protect consumers” -- in stories each complete with a sympathetic victim of jacked-up interest rates, but barely any time, if any,…

Straight from UPI's transcript of Barack Obama's Earth Day remarks in Newton, Iowa yesterday -- in the midst of flights that reportedly expended 9,000 gallons of jet fuel -- here is the President's take on this country's oil dependency (bold is mine):Twenty percent of what we spend on imports is the price of our oil imports. ..... It's the cost we've known ever since the gas shortages of the…

Of all the things for CNN to pick as an e-mail alert topic, AutoNation's profitable first-quarter results seemed quite an odd selection. But there it was:It appears that CNN wanted harried readers who wouldn't dig deeper to think that the "auto industry" as a whole is recovering, or at least stabilizing, and that maybe there's even a way out for General Motors and Chrysler that doesn't involve a…

I receive a daily e-mail from SmartMoney.com, usually within an hour or two after the stock markets' closing bell.While its descriptions of daily trading have usually been in sync with reality, in two of the past three days days they have whitewashed pretty dour news.Here's how Monday's capsule of the markets' results read:You might be surprised to learn how big Smart Money thought a mere "dip"…