Recession

Are some in the media enjoying the down Dow? It certainly seemed that "Good Morning America" co-anchor Chris Cuomo was embracing a bit of schadenfreude during the Oct. 24 show - seemingly relieved he could find "some comfort" that other nations are undergoing economic problems just like the United States. As the markets were beginning a very downbeat start, reporter Bianna Golodryga detailed the…

You have to give credit where credit is due. The lead editorial in the Oct. 20 Washington Post didn't declare free-market capitalism dead after the failure of several financial institutions led to massive government intervention - as a front-page story on its Oct. 10 edition declared. Instead, the editorial pointed out the how the market that failed wasn't exactly free to begin with. "The…

Story after story on the full-year results for the federal budget refers to the size of the full-year deficit for the fiscal year that just ended on September 30 ($455 billion), and how it compares to last year's deficit ($162 billion). Almost none of them talk about why the deficit ballooned. I wonder why? Could it be because the Democrat-controlled Congress of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid…

Who you gonna call to fix the economy? Kids. The Dow dropped 5,585 points since its high a year ago, banks have been afraid to lend and the government bought billions in toxic mortgage-backed securities. So CBS's "The Early Show" went to some top finance experts to explain what was happening to viewers, right? Nope, they went to kids, Oct. 10. Weatherman Dave Price talked to fifth graders…

The Securities and Exchange Commission ended the 16-day ban on short selling Oct. 9, which has left many journalists asking if the ban actually worked to keep more banks from failing. The staff at the Business & Media Institute's video blog, "The Biz Flog," could have told you the ban wasn't a good idea when they put together "Who's Afraid of a Big Bad Short Seller?" But, it's nice to see…

The Dow may be tanking and we could be heading into a global recession in the near future, but there's a green lining to it all, according to Reuters. Mother Earth might get a breather from those dastardly carbon emissions, what with shuttered factories and all.Here's how the financial news wire teased a story on the afternoon of October 7, a day after the Dow closed below 10,000 for the first…

If you don't give me money, I won't bail you out! Conservative opposition to a federal bailout of financial institutions is over campaign donations, not a desire to uphold sound market principles, according to CNBC. CNBC's chief Washington correspondent John Harwood said Sept. 25 on "Squawk Box" that he had a conversation with "a top Republican member of congress last night" who told him…

Comparisons to the current Wall Street financial situation to the Great Depression have not been unusual in the media, but Thursday's NBC Nightly News went a step further into inducing panic. Delivering a healthy dose of hyperbole, Steve Liesman of CNBC prompted a “wow” from anchor Brian Williams when he raised the spectre that the credit troubles could lead, “some” would say, to the “U.S.…

As my colleague Brent Baker noted last night, the August 28 CBS "Evening News" and NBC "Nightly News" broadcasts completely ignored the Commerce Department's upward revision of second quarter gross domestic product growth. The department announced August 28 the economy grew at 3.3 percent in the second quarter of 2008, up from initial reports of 1.9 percent. The revised number exceeded…

In case traditional news outlets "forget" to tell you, Uncle Sam announced this morning that second-quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth was revised sharply upward to 3.3% from the late July's advance estimate of 1.9%. Dude, where's my recession? Y'know, the recession that Barack Obama claimed we "almost certainly in" back in mid-July? Believe it or not, there are supposedly legitimate…

Last month, it was the Associated Press's Jeannine Aversa's turn to mishandle the reporting on Uncle Sam's Monthly Treasury Statement on the government's receipts, spending, and deficit. Aversa's usual specialty is hallucinating over "blizzards of pink slips" and "jobs vanishing into thin air" when she does her "report," aka her downbeat propaganda piece, on the government's monthly jobs release…

As an attempt to find a new and innovative way to spread the doom-and-gloom news associated with the economic downturn, BusinessWeek magazine launched a recession blog on its Web site back in May to give a personalized glimpse into "recession" hardships. "This blog is one of the places we'll tell these stories," BusinessWeek.com reporter Tim Catts wrote on the blog's first post on May 2. "Here…