It's About Time: 'Early Show' Finally Reports A Good Economic Story

It was reported on this morning’s "Early Show" on CBS that the Dow Jones Industrial average is on the verge of reaching record highs. CBS correspondent Susan McGinnis went so far as to mention that was are "In a three-year bull market that has some experts predicting a new record could come any day." That raises the question, where has the media been the last three years? It appears that CBS wants to ignore positive economic news because maybe it will help President Bush and Republicans.

Despite the news that the Dow is on the verge of a record high, reporters were shocked that the blue chips are doing so well due to the facts, that they reminded viewers of of high gas prices and that real estate is down. Co-host Julie Chen offered the following story tease at the top of the program:

"I'm Julie Chen. Though gas prices are way up and real estate is down, the bulls are back on Wall Street, as the Dow closes in on an all-time high. We'll have that story."

Also, Susan McGinnis was sure to remind viewers in her report that the Dow index is not the only stock index out there:

"It is worth noting, Julie, other indexes are not near records, the S&P and the NASDAQ, so new highs for the blue chips may not indicate as strong a market as it may look."

To respond to Julie Chen’s tease, gas prices and real estate are not the only things that affect the economic health of America. She must have missed the news that unemployment remains at a relatively low 4.7% and GDP growth for the first quarter of 2006 was a blistering 4.8%. Maybe Julie Chen was unaware of those numbers considering the "Early Show" failed to report on these indicators of a robust economy, instead they chose to focus on high energy prices.

As to Susan McGinnis’ point, while the NASDAQ and S&P 500 indexes may not be headed toward record highs, they are both up since the beginning of the year, indicating that all the markets are headed in the right direction, which could lead one to conclude that the markets look pretty strong right now.

Later in the program, Harry Smith hit Arthur Hogan, Managing Director of Jeffries and Company, an investment firm, with the same question about oil prices:

"All right. We have all this economic news, not the least of which is these gas and oil prices continuing to go up. It seems counterintuitive that the Dow would just keep rising and it's going to keep going up?"

The markets are going up because investors pay attention to more than one aspect of the economy. They know what the unemployment trends are, what the GDP trend is, and they make their investment decisions based on all the economic data available. Fortunately for investors, they don’t have rely on CBS and the other networks for their economic information.