'Today' Pits Partisan Dems vs. Reticent Republicans
November 11th, 2007 9:57 AM
How overmatched were the two lukewarm-at-best Republicans that "Today" tossed in against two partisan Dems this morning? If NBC scheduled this unfair a fight for Sunday Night Football, Al Michaels would be calling the play-by-play between the New England Patriots and the proverbial Little Sisters of Mercy.The Today show's farce of a "voter panel" was invited to discuss politics and the state of…
Nets Lead w/ 'Awful' Economic News, Not So Excited About Job Gains
November 8th, 2007 4:01 AM
When the Labor Department on Friday announced a strong gain of 166,000 jobs during October, double expectations, ABC and CBS gave it a few seconds while NBC ignored the good news, but on Wednesday night NBC, as well as ABC and CBS, led with a bad day on Wall Street they painted as a harbinger of impending economic doom. NBC anchor Brian Williams piled on the bad news as he insisted he took “no…
Lauer Begs Barack to Say Economy's Headed to Recession
November 2nd, 2007 9:50 AM
Talk about talking down the economy! No fewer than three times today, Matt Lauer invited Barack Obama to declare that the U.S. economy is headed into recession. At the end of a "Today" interview that focused largely on Hillary-related issues and Iran, Lauer turned to the economy and pressed Obama to predict the worst.View video here.
Price of Media Warm-mongering: Kansas Denies Coal-fired Power Plant Li
October 20th, 2007 12:31 PM
On Thursday, for the first time in American history, a state denied an electricity producer a construction license for a coal-fired power plant due to manmade global warming fears. As ominously reported by the New York Times Saturday (emphasis added): The Kansas Department of Health and Environment on Thursday turned down a permit for twin 700-megawatt coal-fired generators that a group of…
Revised August Jobs Report: Old Media Not Looking for Retractions from
October 6th, 2007 1:04 PM
NewsBusters' Brent Baker and Dan Gainor each did a fine job chronicling Old Media's weak coverage of yesterday's solid September Employment Situation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Here's another Old Media non-followup on yesterday's news: Failure to get a reaction from two Democratic presidential candidates who had harsh things to say a month ago when August's weak employment report…
Month Ago CBS Saw Recession, But Now Skip Big Job Gains
October 5th, 2007 10:26 PM
When the Labor Department reported a net loss of 4,000 jobs for August, the September 7 ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts highlighted the bad news as evidence of an impending recession, but on Friday, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics revised the August number to a gain of 89,000 jobs and reported 110,000 new jobs for September (AP story), only ABC bothered to mention the revision while CBS…
What Media Won’t Tell You About August Unemployment Numbers
September 9th, 2007 12:00 PM
If you watched any television newscasts Friday, or read a paper Saturday, you were bombarded with claims of doom and gloom as a result of the August unemployment report showing 4,000 fewer people on American payrolls than in July. Yet, what media largely ignored were shifting sociological population dynamics indicating this summer's poor jobs gains could be caused by the smallest percentage of…
AP Spins Record Low Unemployment as Problem That Could Get Worse
August 25th, 2007 3:45 PM
Most Americans understand that unemployment declining is a good thing. Yet, the folks at the Associated Press seem confused about this economic statistic as evidenced by an article published Saturday entitled "Help Wanted Ads Go Unanswered in West." In fact, contrary to a media fixated on bashing corporations and business owners as greedy little devils, Matt Gouras' piece actually elicited…
