Making Up Bad Economic News
Over on the Readers’s Blog Robert108 reported that the economy was very good in the second quarter. That got me to wondering how it’s being reported in the news.
It wasn’t on the front page of the CNN web site. It wasn’t on the US news section. It was in the business news with a slant that’s hard to believe.
The economic growth mirage
Sure, the economy grew at a decent clip in the second quarter. But economists say the gain may be temporary and warn of tougher times ahead.
According to an update to the second-quarter gross domestic product report released by the government Thursday, the economy grew at a 3.3% clip, up from the 1.9% annual growth rate first reported last month. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com were expecting GDP to be revised up to 2.7% in the quarter. The GDP is the broadest measure of the nation’s economic activity.
Economic growth between 2.5% and 3.5% is typically viewed as the norm for a healthy economy.
So the economy comes in after a weak couple of quarters on the strong end of what’s considered a healthy economy and all CNN can come up with is negatives.
This is great news. But when the politics of the reporters and editors contrast with reality than reality has to go.
I see this bias didn’t hit the entire old media. The Washington Post actually covered it fairly well.
