Economy

Producer of an MSM morning news show? Got a few minutes to fill at the end of your first half-hour? Why not resort to a tried-and-true winner: a bit of good old class warfare?That was the "Today" formula this morning. Matt Lauer introduced the segment, enviously entitled "Share the Wealth?: The Rich Get Richer," fanning the flames of envy and resentment with this opener:TODAY CO-HOST MATT…

The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared past the 13,000 level on Wednesday, but the CBS and ABC evening newscasts reported the good news in the media's all-too-frequent “yes, but” framework. CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric fretted that “even as investors are making money in the market, Anthony Mason reports there are concerns tonight about the rest of the U.S. economy.” Mason talked with a…

This dovetails well with what my colleague Scott Whitlock reported on NewsBusters two days ago:ABC Graphic: "Will Dow Hit 13,000 Today? Is Unstoppable Market Good or Bad?"The graphic ran underneath co-host Diane Sawyer and GMA financial contributor Mellody Hobson’s discussion over whether or not the Dow, which has been breaking records recently, is headed for a downturn. Today the Dow Jones…

Is The Ford Motor Company committing an Old-Media-assisted suicide? On Wednesday, One News Now had a story about how the Formerly Mainstream Media has largely ignored the negative impact the the American Family Association's boycott of Ford has had on the company (an audio version of the report is also at the link): News media ignoring Ford boycott, media analyst says

In late February and early March, Alan Greenspan's musing and odds-making on whether the US economy would go into a recession later this year was all the rage in the Formerly Mainstream Media. Here's how Craig Torres of Bloomberg News started out his March 7 report carried in the Washington Post: 'One-Third Probability' in '07, Former Fed Chief Says Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan…

Of course there were many other newsmaking events this week, but the relatively silent treatment this story received from Old Media is still not a surprise (the link is to a story at a trade publication's web site; very few papers had a related story written by the Associated Press): Maryland Abandons ‘Fair Share’ Health Care Fight

Mother Nature must have a wicked sense of humor. She forced ABC's Sam Champion to report on anti-global warming initiative . . . . while standing in a field of snow in late April.Champion was there as part of Good Morning America's "Planet Earth 2007" segment, in which reporters chimed in from around the globe on various environmental initiatives. Diane Sawyer [badly alarmed by a warm spell…

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Real Earnings News Release yesterday: Average weekly earnings rose by 4.4 percent, seasonally adjusted, from March 2006 to March 2007. After deflation by the CPI-W, average weekly earnings increased by 1.6 percent. And here's one for Paul "the rich are getting it all" Krugman of the New York Times -- Note who is being surveyed when these numbers are…