Economy

Impending Layoffs at ESPN Aren't Only About the 'Media Landscape'
By Tom Blumer | September 23, 2015 | 11:16 AM EDT

Word on the street is that ESPN is planning to lay off "200 to 300" employees in the coming months.

The go-to euphemism surrounding the impending layoffs, according to Variety's Brian Steinberg, is "the changing media landscape," primarily the "cord-cutting" phenomenon. In July, the Big Lead blog, in discussing Keith Olbermann's expected departure from ESPN, explained that "millennials are eschewing expensive cable TV bills and streaming everything online." While that might explain flat viewership or even a modest decline, cord-cutting is only a minor part of the problem. Someone needs to explain why ESPN's ratings have fallen by a stunning 30 percent in the past 12 months.

5 Hard Left Issues Where Journalists Show Their Love for Pope Francis
By Julia A. Seymour | September 21, 2015 | 10:17 AM EDT

Pope Francis is kicking off his American tour and attracting attention not just from Catholics, but the liberal news media that love everything the pope does that they agree with.

If history repeats itself journalists will praise the pope for every liberal thing he says during the visit, especially about the economy, capitalism and wealth. The networks have called him “a different kind of pope” and one “breaking the mold” that view has been evident in their news coverage of Pope Francis since he was named pope March 13, 2013.

AP's Boak: With the Economy So Good, Why Won't Fed Raise Rates?
By Tom Blumer | September 19, 2015 | 10:51 PM EDT

The business press just can't understand why the Federal Reserve decided not to raise interest rates on Thursday. After all, these alleged journalists have been telling us for months bordering on years that U.S. economy is really in good shape. So it should be able to handle a rate hike, especially after over seven years of rates at essentially zero. The problem is that they now believe their own bogus blather. The U.S. economy is not in good shape, and data seen during the past several weeks show that the situation is deteriorating, not improving.

Excerpts from an early Friday report at the Associated Press by Josh Boak illustrate how out of touch the business press really is (bolds and numbered tags are mine):

Business Wires Pretend That U.S. Weakness Didn't Influence Fed's No-Change Rate Decision
By Tom Blumer | September 19, 2015 | 10:02 AM EDT

The business press is trying to convince readers, listeners, and viewers that Janet Yellen's Federal Reserve kept interest rates at zero not because of U.S. economic conditions, which supposedly "look good" with "steady economic growth." No-no. She stayed the course because of the troubled tglobal economy.

Thursday evening, Reuters wrote that the Fed failed to move "in a bow to worries about the global economy, financial market volatility and sluggish inflation at home." Bloomberg directly blamed "China growth concerns." The Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger cited "a weak global economy, persistently low inflation and unstable financial markets." None of the three noted the deteriorating situation in the U.S., and the only item I could find which cited the Fed's full set of pathetic annual U.S. growth projections was a Wall Street Journal editorial.

Real USA Today Article: ‘Where Would You Flee If Trump Wins?'
By Tom Blumer | September 18, 2015 | 10:53 PM EDT

In the pre-social media days, we endured "threats" from various people, mostly celebrities with far-left political views, that they would leave the country if a Republican presidential candidate won election or reelection. Late director Robert Altman, actor Alec Baldwin, actress Kim Basinger, singer Barbra Streisand, and others threatened to leave the U.S. in 2000 if George W. Bush won that year's presidential contest against Al Gore. Though Altman left us permanently in 2006, none of the luminaries just named carried through on their threats to move elsewhere when Bush won.

Now it's apparently a bit of a sport on social media to threaten to leave the country if Donald Trump wins the presidency. On Tuesday, clearly otherwise out of story ideas, Paul Singer at USA Today treated a "content analysis" firm's compilation of such desires expressed on Twitter as news. It's also comedy gold (HT Gateway Pundit; bolds are mine):

Shock: CBS’s O’Donnell Smacks Bernie Sanders from the Right on Health Care, Taxes
By Curtis Houck | September 18, 2015 | 11:55 AM EDT

In a near 180-degree reversal to his interview the previous evening with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, Democratic presidential candidate and socialist Bernie Sanders found himself on Friday’s CBS This Morning being repeatedly slammed from the right by co-host Norah O’Donnell on his far-left tax plans and hope for a universal health care system. 

AP's Riccardi Distorts, Misrepresents Estimated Impacts of Jeb Bush's Tax Plan
By Tom Blumer | September 17, 2015 | 2:21 PM EDT

Either Nicholas Riccardi at the Associated Press is woefully ignorant, or he set out to deliberately mislead readers about the impact of Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush's tax plan. I'll report the details; readers here can decide for themselves.

Riccardi's "analysis," contained in his Sunday morning writeup covering the tax proposals of Bush, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, contained the following paragraph summarizing the Bush plan's impact (HT to longtime emailer Alfred Lemire):

AP, Covering Latest Government Report, Hides the Obama Era's Poverty Rise, Household Income Decline
By Tom Blumer | September 16, 2015 | 5:21 PM EDT

From its "Don't read this story, it's boring" headline to its obfuscating content, today's coverage at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, of the Census Bureau's 2014 report on income and poverty in the United States was all about ensuring that readers know as little as possible about the declining incomes and disheartening increases in officially-defined poverty seen during the Obama administration.

I'll focus on just two of the many shortcomings in Jesse J. Holland's AP report.

Delusional AP Report on Retail Sales Celebrates 'Surges' in Spending
By Tom Blumer | September 15, 2015 | 10:17 PM EDT

Shortly after its release this morning, Josh Boak at the Associated Press posted his coverage of the Census Bureau's August retail sales report. On a seasonally adjusted basis, August's sales came in a very mediocre 0.2 percent greater than July.

It's almost too kind to say that Boak's writeup was delusional. The AP reporter celebrated "surges" in spending, "fed ... by solid and steady job gains" that will "sustain U.S. economic growth." He missed an important clue, downplaying the significance of "a possible pullback in the housing sector's momentum" — not that there has been all that much momentum anyway.

LA Times, AP Ignore Dems' Economic Revolt Against California Environmental Zealots
By Tom Blumer | September 14, 2015 | 4:44 PM EDT

You wouldn't know it from reading the national coverage by the Associated Press or stories at the Los Angeles Times, but California Governor Jerry Brown and his fellow far-left Democratic Party environmentalists suffered significant setbacks last week.

How bad? So bad that the Times editorial board accused "a new crop of moderate Democratic legislators" of succumbing to "oil industry propaganda." What really happened is that enough Democrats to make a difference looked at the impact of Brown's pet pieces of legislation on the state's economy and job market and said, "No mas."

At AP, Possibly Lowest Deficit in 8 Years Is News, But Certain Records For Taxes and Spending Aren't
By Tom Blumer | September 12, 2015 | 7:42 PM EDT

Friday's report on the federal government's budget deficit through August told us that with one month remaining in the fiscal year, Uncle Sam will certainly "achieve" an all-time single-year record in tax collections accompanied by all-time record spending.

The Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger apparently didn't consider either item newsworthy. Instead, he decided that the real news is this year's projected deficit will be the lowest in the past years — even though that projected shortfall of $426 billion, though quite likely is by no means certain.

Stephen Colbert Badgers Uber CEO on Taxis, Surge Pricing, Uber Eats, Driverless Cars
By Curtis Houck | September 11, 2015 | 1:12 PM EDT

Following Vice President Joe Biden’s very publicized appearance, Late Show host Stephen Colbert also welcomed Uber CEO Travis Kalanick to the program Thursday night, but it was anything but friendly as Colbert hammered Kalanick on the effect his company has had on the taxi industry, surge pricing, the Uber Eats initiative, and driverless cars. Colbert demanded: “What is your response to Uber kills professional, good-paying jobs and it's unfair to the drivers and it's destroying the cab industry.”