The Associated Press's Christopher Rugaber had a very bad day on Thursday as he covered the government's June jobs report, but it was all self-inflicted.

I noted much of the problem in a NewsBusters post yesterday, citing how the AP economics writer got badly burned while engaging in the wire service's usual practice of analyzing expected and reported economic results instead of concentrating on relaying the facts. But there's more.

Though the Associated Press is now basically admitting it, we all knew it. Obamacare's 30-hours-per-week definition of a "full-time employee" for employer health insurance coverage purposes has been responsible for one of the fundamentally negative changes in the American workforce — a noticeable move away from full-time to part-time employment.

In a report with a current Saturday morning time stamp at the AP's national web site which originally went up on Friday, the wire service's Christopher Rugaber and Josh Boak covered the "new normal" in the job market. This writeup will receive yours truly's fuller attention later. But for now, I must note that the pair's report largely abandoned the AP's and the establishment press's years of near denial (bolds are mine throughout this post):

On May 1, the Associated Press's Paul Wiseman was pleased to tell the wire service's readers and subscribing outlets that "The University of Michigan's sentiment index rose to 95.9 from 93 in March," reaching "its second-highest level since 2007." Among other things, the survey's chief economist said that the result reflected "improving prospects for jobs and incomes."

What a difference two weeks makes. Today's preliminary U of M survey for April dropped to 88.6, completely missing expectations of 95.9. Zero Hedge notes that it's the biggest expectations miss on record, and the largest single-month drop since December 2012. Naturally, a search at its national site indicates that the AP prepared no story on the U of M report.

It appears that someone might need to schedule an intervention with the Associated Press's economics writers.

In his dispatch published a half-hour after the government's March release on international trade at 8:30 this morning, the wire service's Martin Crutsinger quoted a normally upbeat economist who was singing the blues about the result's effect on previously reported first-quarter economic growth. Now, he said, the economy "undoubtedly contracted slightly in the first quarter" by an estimated 0.3 percent. But about an hour later, the AP's Christopher Rugaber ignored this assessment — and that of many others — in his writeup covering the 10 a.m. release of the Institute for Supply Management's Non-Manufacuring Index. Don't these guys talk to each other?

The Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, is hard at work putting a brave face on a shaky economy.

Just one example: On Thursday, after February consumer spending fell sharply for the third straight month, the wire service's Christopher Rugaber reported that "Freezing temperatures and snowstorms likely weighed on sales in February," and that "steep drops in gas prices dragged down sales" in December and January. While that was largely accurate, Rugaber then looked ahead, citing consumer confidence, at that point at "its highest levels since the recession," as a reason not to be concerned about the economy's long-term health. But today, when the University of Michigan's Consumer Sentiment Index "unexpectedly" fell by over four points from 95.4 to 91.2, defying expectations that it would barely increase, a search on "University Michigan" at its national site indicates that the AP didn't report it.