Dow Down 281 Points Big News Friday, Dow Up 287 Points Not So Newswort
A pronounced example of how bad news is news and good news is much less newsworthy: On Friday night, ABC and NBC teased full stories on the 281 point plunge that day in the Dow Jones average, but on Monday, after the Dow rebounded by five points greater than Friday's loss in the biggest one-day gain in five years, the networks limited coverage to a few seconds. “The stock market stumbles again…
Day 1 after Jim Cramer’s Friday ‘Armageddon' Call: Markets Up, Bon
The lesson from this post isn't bias as much as it is making sure not to get taken in by Old Media overreactions. Jim Cramer of CNBC's "Mad Money" went mad on Friday, declaring Armageddon in this video rant on Friday (watch the whole thing to see just how out-of-control he was; his declaration is at 1:40 in the vid -- "in the fixed-income markets, we have Armageddon."). The first trading day…
NBC Uses Housing Slump as Scapegoat
If all else fails – blame the housing market. It works for NBC.This time a struggling housing market is the reason auto sales are struggling. The week before, it was responsible for the drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Good thing “Nightly News” is focusing on global warming solutions or the network might even try to pin that on the housing market.“Even Toyota sales fell and blamed a…
Translating the AP's Coverage of Today's Consumer Confidence Report
Here's the opening of today's Associated Press report about the July Consumer Confidence Index (bolds are mine): Consumer confidence hit a six-year high in July, a widely watched gauge of sentiment showed on Tuesday, as Americans shrugged off falling home prices to focus on a healthy jobs market, instead. The New York-based Conference Board said that its Consumer Confidence Index, rebounded to…
Gloom & Doomers: Despite Good Numbers, Times & Globe Talk Down Economy
Last week's economic report couldn't have been much rosier. The economy grew at a faster-than-expected rate, faster than any time in over a year. But far from sparking runaway prices, inflation actually moderated. But that didn't stop the Axis of Gloom, AKA the New York Times and its Beantown subsidiary the Boston Globe from publishing op-ed items this morning finding the cloud on the silver…
Nets Barely Notice Surge in GDP Growth as They Focus on Dow Plunge
The ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts on Friday all devoted full stories to the fall in the stock market, touted as “the worst two-day point drop for the Dow in five years,” but barely had time for a sentence about the 3.4 percent second quarter jump in the GDP, the biggest in over a year. In fact, neither ABC nor NBC cited the specific 3.4 percent rise in the Gross Domestic Product, the measure…
NYT's New Democrat Campaign Slogan: It’s NOT The Economy, Stupid
In 1992, Bill Clinton successfully used a campaign strategy of continually focusing attention on the supposedly poor economy thinking that Americans typically vote with their wallets. Of course, most intelligent people know that the recession actually ended in early 1991, and that this strategy would have failed miserably had the media not been complicit, and, instead, honestly reported…
