The front page of Tuesday's Wall Street Journal offered a big story: "Dow Hits a Record As U.S. Outpaces World." Reporter Amrith Ramkumar noted the market hit 27,462, a gain of 0.4 percent for the day. "The rally brought its 2019 advance to 18% in what has been a banner year on Wall Street."
ABC, CBS, and NBC on Monday night? Nothing. NPR had no segment on All Things Considered. There was also no sign of this good news on the ABC, CBS, and NBC morning "news" programs. But impeachment? Who can get enough of that?
President Trump touted the news at his rally in Kentucky on Monday night:
The PBS NewsHour had 37 words from anchor Amna Nawaz: "On Wall Street, a new week brought new record closes on three major indexes. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 114 points to close at 27,462. The Nasdaq rose 46 points, and the S&P 500 added 11."
The papers weren't much better:
-- The New York Times had a small headline on top of B-2, the Business section: "Record for Dow as Rally Enters 5th Week." The story was from the Associated Press. The Business headlines on page 1 were "Apple to Aid Housing Crunch" and "Consumers Party On: Companies are cutting back rattled by doubt. Now consumer spending is especially driving growth."
-- USA Today had no story, not even in the Money section. They had a Dow Jones chart, but no story. At the top of Money, they promoted a splashy interview with Obama adviser Susan Rice on B-2. The front page had no stock update, but did carry "Trump's tax [return] fight heads for a last stand."
-- The Washington Post has no front-page story, but at the bottom of Page 1 was the plug: "Extending last week's run, U.S. markets closed at record highs. A17."
The Post printed a story by its own reporter, Taylor Telford, who quoted economist Chris Rupkey of MUFG Union Bank: "There is no recession out there on the horizon....The stock market can rejoice and continue to climb to new record highs."
That sounds like a story worth reporting on TV, doesn't it?
