The U.S. economy missed its jobs numbers target for July, but The Associated Press chose to bury the lede to run cover for the Biden administration.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Aug. 4 that the economy added just 187,000 jobs in July, missing the 200,000 mark expected by economists. But this is how the Associated Press (AP) chose to twist the news in its headline: “US employers add a still-solid 187,000 jobs in June; unemployment dips to 3.5%.” Yes, AP even got the month wrong in its headline.
Comparing how AP spun the news to how other outlets reported on the jobs numbers like CNBC exposes the blatant bias. CNBC published an article with the headline: “July jobs report: U.S. payroll growth totaled 187,000, lower than expected.” ABC News, which chose to reprint the AP article, later posted the stealth-edited update to the headline and the AP’s attempt to carry water for President Joe Biden by downplaying recession concerns: “Fewer Americans got jobs in July than expected. But a steady market suggests US may avoid recession.” The article’s shameless spin didn’t stop there, though. “The job market has cooled over the summer. But it’s still strong enough to defy predictions that higher interest rates would tip the United States into recession,“ reported the AP.
MRC Business Associate Editor Joseph Vazquez blasted ABC News on twitter, writing, “‘solid’ is a pretty cute way of classifying a miss @ABC. You half-wits.”
"solid" is a pretty cute way of classifying a miss @ABC. You half-wits. https://t.co/31Na48jy8S
— Joseph Vazquez (@JV3MRC) August 4, 2023
But here’s another caveat that gets glossed over by this article’s framing. Previous job gains in both May and June have been revised lower. Specifically, the “change in total nonfarm payroll employment for May was revised down by 25,000, from +306,000 to +281,000, and the change for June was revised down by 24,000, from +209,000 to +185,000.” According to Euro Pacific Asset Management Chief Economist Peter Schiff, today’s jobs numbers, and the downward revisions from the prior two months, show that the labor market is displaying more signs of “cracking.”
But the AP and ABC News chose to parrot the nonsensical propaganda by ZipRecruiter Chief Economist Julia Pollak, which read like a public relations statement from Biden’s press secretary. “‘This is a good strong report,’” Pollak claimed to the AP. “‘The worst fears that people had of a painful downturn, a loss of jobs, longer unemployment durations, all those things — those are not coming to pass.’” What a joke.
This is far from the first time a Big Three network has run cover for Biden’s failed economic policies. After the 2022 job numbers that President Biden bragged about were brutally revised from over a million jobs gained down to ten thousand, the Big Three networks buried the news for at least four days.
Meanwhile, generous characterizations of this nature were all but nonexistent on Big Three network programming during the Trump Administration. The major outlets not only ignored and minimized economic news that reflected well on former President Donald Trump, but the race-obsessed media even ignored a drop in the African-American unemployment rate. During the pandemic, the media ignored a gargantuan job gain of 2.369 million in June 2020 and another huge job gain of 638,000 in October.
Conservatives are under attack! Contact ABC News (818) 460-7477 and the Associated Press at 212-621-1500 and tell them to get registered if they want to act as a Super PAC for Joe Biden.
