Business Coverage

Two Weeks After Correcting Himself, CNBC's Harwood Lies About Rubio's Tax Plan — Again
By Tom Blumer | October 29, 2015 | 1:41 AM EDT

The competition for the worst moderator moment of Wednesday night's GOP debate is fierce. John Harwood's rephrasing of an old and discredited charge that Marco Rubio's tax plan disproportionately benefits the top 1 percent has to be in the running.

That's especially true because Harwood himself had to back away from a simialr contention two weeks ago, yet still brought up the same issue with a similar dishonest assumption Wednesday night. After Rubio refuted Harwood and pointed out that the CNBC hack previously had to correct himself about the substance of the Rubio-Lee plan, a finger-wagging Harwood still insisted he was correct (bolds are mine throughout this post):

AP's Crutsinger: 3rd Quarter Economy Was 'Subpar,' But Future 'Outlook Brightens'
By Tom Blumer | October 28, 2015 | 8:31 PM EDT

Preparing the battlespace for tomorrow's report from the government on third-quarter Gross Domestic Product growth, the Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger early this afternoon told readers that we're likely to see "a subpar pace by any standard."

But we shouldn't worry, because the AP reporter contends that tomorrow's news will just be a temporary trough in this year's "dizzying roller coaster ride," and that the fourth quarter will once again bring the economy up to acceptable heights. To make his claim, Crutsinger naturally ignored myriad warning signs that a serious slowdown may be on the horizon. A decade ago, he was hyping other far less serious factors as evidence that the economy would be lucky to avoid a recession.

Nailed It! Reason Mag Rips Up NYT Hit Piece on NYC Nail Salons; Workers Protest NYT HQ
By Clay Waters | October 28, 2015 | 10:52 AM EDT

The New York Times proudly unveiled on the front of its Sunday May 10 issue an"expose" of nail salons in Manhattan by Sarah Maslin Nir, "The Price of Nice Nails" (Nir also criticized white "gentrification" among Hurricane Sandy volunteers in 2012.) The first part focused on alleged "rampant exploitation" of workers, and is causing major damage to a local industry composed mostly of lower class Asian workers. In her expose, privileged white reporter Nir certainly did her own part for "gentrification," helping heap onerous regulatory burdens on nail salons and hurting the mostly Asian workforce with a set of misleading articles. And the workers are responding with protests at NYT Co. headquarters.

Without Evidence, AP's Rugaber Credits 'Solid Sales' For Home Price Index Increase
By Tom Blumer | October 28, 2015 | 12:59 AM EDT

To err is human, but some errors are more obvious than others.

One pretty obvious error occurred Tuesday at the Associated Press. It involved veteran economics reporter Christopher Rugaber, who somehow assumed that the August increase in home prices recorded in a well-known index published on Tuesday primarily occurred because of "solid sales." The problem is that seasonally adjusted existing home sales declined sharply in August.

AP's Coverage of Another Awful Durable Goods Report Goes Quickly Into Hiding
By Tom Blumer | October 27, 2015 | 3:08 PM EDT

If you're a few hours late catching up on reports on economic data at the Associated Press, one of the best ways to determine whether the news was good or disappointing is to see whether the story's headline and opening blurb are still present about four hours later among the wire service's "Top (usually 10) Business News" items. The good-news items will usually still be there; the disappointing ones will usually be gone.

Sure enough, as of about 12:30, Martin Crutsinger's dispatch in the wake of the 8:30 a.m. Durable Goods report from the Census Bureau was no longer a Top Story. That's because, even though Crutsinger did his level best to ignore pertinent facts and try to pin the blame elsewhere, the news was awful.

AP Writeup on Steep September New Home Sales Drop Omits Key Facts
By Tom Blumer | October 26, 2015 | 11:31 PM EDT

Today saw yet another "unexpected" disappointing development in the U.S. economy. The Census Bureau reported that seasonally adjusted sales of new homes, an area thought to be a bright spot, declined sharply in September to an annual rate 468,000 from 529,000 in August. The bureau also revised July and August significantly downward.

As bad as the as the adjusted numbers were, the raw data was even worse. Despite all of this, and despite the fact that the pace of new-home sales is still only about two-thirds of what it used to tell readers would be a "normal" or "healthy" level, the Associated Press's Josh Boak, apparently taking a double shot from today's good-news koolaid delivery, tried to pawn off today's result as a one-off interruption of what has otherwise been a year where "zeal for newly built homes took off."

Coverage of UAW-GM Tentative Agreement Perpetuates 'Concessions' Myth
By Tom Blumer | October 26, 2015 | 11:28 AM EDT

Late Sunday evening, the United Auto Workers and General Motors reached a tentative four-year agreement shortly before the union's 11:59 p.m. strike deadline.

The agreement was expected, simply because the financial and political blowback of a strike at a company bailed out by taxpayers at a cost running into tens of billion of dollars back in 2009 would have been severe. Also expected: the press buying into and perpetuating the myth that the union made significant concessions to GM and Chrysler during the course of those two companies' respective corrupt bankruptcies.

Not News: UAW Considering Plan to Milk the Unemployment System If It Calls a GM Strike
By Tom Blumer | October 24, 2015 | 10:30 PM EDT

The news coming out of Detroit about near-deadline negotiations between the United Auto Workers union and General Motors has been pretty quiet. As the Sunday 11:59 p.m. deadline approaches, the Associated Press only has a four-paragraph blurb indicating that the union wants to get a richer package than it just garnered in negotiations with Fiat Chrysler. A Reuters report goes into detail about GM's cost structure still being higher than that seen at Toyota's and Nissan's U.S. plants by about 15 percent and 31 percent, respectively. The New York Times is only carrying reports from the wires.

One note of substance about the UAW's strategy covered at Bloomberg News — surely known to others following the industry who are filing bland reports — is that it plans to milk the unemployment insurance system in the event of a protracted strike.

AP's Crutsinger Fails to Investigate How Jobless Claims Stay Low With Slow Hiring
By Tom Blumer | October 22, 2015 | 4:13 PM EDT

If a Republican or conservative was in the White House, the Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger would have found a reason to be unimpressed in his dispatch today about how low initial unemployment claims continue to be, even as hiring has been slowing down. (Ideally, reporters should just relay the facts and leave the theorizing out of their stories, but that ship has sadly long since sailed.)

Crutsinger exhibited no real curiosity because a Democrat is in the White House. Therefore, it's left to New Media to at least get the alternative ideas out there; a contributor at the contrarian blog Zero Hedge did that several days ago. After the jump, readers will find most of Crutsinger's report covering the Department of Labor's initial claims release today, and a healthly chunk of the just-mentioned Zero Hedge analysis.

AP's Rugaber Fails to Note 21,000 Jobs Lost in Government's State Jobs Report
By Tom Blumer | October 21, 2015 | 6:55 PM EDT

On October 2, the government's Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that U.S. payroll employment increased in September by a seasonally adjusted 142,000 jobs. That was disappointing enough, but then the BLS's regional and state report for September released on Tuesday showed a combined total of 21,000 jobs lost in all 50 states and DC.

In his coverage of the state report, the Associated Press's Christopher Rugaber didn't report this wide variance, even though the monthly national vs. total state difference is usually much smaller. The closest he got was reporting that more states lost jobs than gained them, which should have piqued his curiosity about how that result could happen when the nation somehow gained as many jobs as it did during the month, but apparently didn't (bolds are mine):

Latest Fairness Crisis: Breakfast Sandwich Inequality
By Tom Blumer | October 13, 2015 | 8:28 PM EDT

Life is so unfair. "The rich" live in nicer places, have nicer amenities, drive nicer cars, etc., etc.

Here's the last straw: Now they even have better breakfast sandwiches. But never fear: The press's inequality police are on patrol to supply the outrage.

ABC Oil Drama Teaches Betrayal Is ‘Just Business’
By Julia A. Seymour | October 12, 2015 | 12:03 PM EDT

It was obvious from the start of ABC’s new drama, Blood & Oil, that Hap Briggs (the “Baron of the Bakken”) would turn out to be ruthless and conniving, no matter how charming he might seem. After all, he’s an oil man and the media just love (to hate) them.

In prior episodes Briggs appeared to admire Billy LeFever’s tenacity and mind for the oil business. He even seemed to have taken Billy “under his wing,” but the latest episode proved much of that may have been an act. Or that Briggs is willing to backstab even the people he likes and even a man who saved his life.