Today on Fox News, I heard a commentator say that conservatives always complain that the media is biased. She didn’t seem to understand the complaint. Well, every now and then figures show us what reality is.<\/p>\n
Newsbusters.org<\/a> has some notes today on how the economy is being reported under President Barack Obama and how it was reported under President George W. Bush. For instance, a 0.4 percent decline in the nation’s Gross Domestic Product occurred in 2001 after 911 when George Bush was president. The press declared this a calamity. Friday, it was announced that the Gross Domestic Product had declined 1 percent. The media applauded. <\/p>\n When the GDP showed a .04 percent decline in 2001, the New York Times said in an editorial:<\/p>\n “Gross domestic product shrank by 0.4 percent in the third quarter of this year. That performance was better than most analysts expected, but still the worst in a decade. The economy is probably contracting even faster now, and the recovery many had hoped to see by year’s end is not likely to arrive until well into 2002.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Compare that to this quote from Associated Press’s Jeannine Aversa on the recent1 percent decline of the GDP:<\/p>\n “The economy dipped only slightly in the second quarter of this year — falling at a 1 percent annual pace, better than expected. And many analysts think the economy is starting to grow again in the current quarter, setting up a long-awaited recovery.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n So a 0.4 percent drop means that recovery will be slow in coming and a 1 percent drop means that recovery is just around the corner! Do they teach math in journalism school?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today on Fox News, I heard a commentator say that conservatives always complain that the media is biased. She didn’t seem to understand the complaint. Well, every now and then figures show us what reality is. Newsbusters.org has some notes today … Continue reading \n
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