Media Bias

[guido911]

From a right leaning website, so take it in consideration. Still, pretty interesting.

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/06/pre-election-bls-reports-then-and-now/

[RecycleMichael]

The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and PBS are among the most liberal media outlets. But they pale in comparison to the listeners of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Fox News. Let us see how they covered the unemployment story yesterday...

http://mediamatters.org/research/2011/10/06/limbaugh-falsely-claims-obama-created-widesprea/181526

http://mediamatters.org/video/2012/10/05/hannity-joins-the-conspiracy-claims-obama-admin/190425

http://mediamatters.org/video/2012/10/05/after-positive-jobs-report-foxs-guilfoyle-calls/190419

This is what what said about the Bureau of Labor Statistics by veteran economic reporters...

Eight Veteran Economics Reporters Dismiss "Implausible" Jobs Numbers Conspiracy

Veteran economics reporters and columnists are strongly criticizing conservative claims that the unemployment data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday was manipulated to benefit President Obama politically, calling such allegations "implausible" and "unfounded."

Shortly after the BLS announced that the unemployment rate had fallen to 7.8%, former GE CEO Jack Welch tweeted, "Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything..can't debate so change numbers." Welch's tweet was quickly highlighted by the Drudge Report. Since then, conservative media figures, including multiple Fox News personalities, have tried to cast doubt on the new jobs numbers.

But experienced financial journalists at outlets like The New York Times and The Economist say the contention that the new unemployment rate is fraudulent is not based on any valid proof. "It is completely implausible to me that they would actively rig the thing to help Obama," said Joe Nocera, New York Times business columnist. "The guys are green eye-shaded career bureaucrats who have no particular vested interest one way or another in who wins the presidential election."

Nocera was referring to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which compiles the unemployment rates and has no political ties to the White House. "They come out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, if you are going to cook them, how exactly would you go about it, it is pretty implausible that the career bureaucrats at the Bureau would cook the books for Obama," Nocera added. "Everybody likes a conspiracy theory, but it is hard to understand how they would do it."

Jesse Eisinger, senior reporter for finance at ProPublica and a former seven-year Wall Street Journal reporter, agreed. "This is complete fantasy," he said about the claims of political influence. "It is yet another one of these right-wing denialist ideas. They're perennial ideas that government statistics are manipulated. These are flawed measures, certainly, but the flaws are not due to any partisanship ... These are done by reputable civil servants. There is almost no way that these numbers could be manipulated for political gain. It doesn't hold up in any way you think about it."

Martin Wolk, executive business editor for NBC News Digital, also called such claims baseless. "I've been covering economics for a long time and I have been watching these reports come out every month and I talk to these economists and I think that those claims are unfounded," Wolk said in an interview Friday. "They do the best to present those claims honestly. I have never seen a pattern where the numbers consistently favor one party or another. I would defy anyone to find a pattern in those numbers that is politically motivated."

Added David Cay Johnston, a former New York Times economics reporter and author of many books on taxes and business: "This claim gets made often. It has never been shown to have any basis in fact afterward during previous administrations." Kevin Hall, McClatchy's national economic correspondent and president of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, called Welch's claim "mindboggling."

"This is a guy who is a business guru, he's a lion of the industry. For him to say something as outrageous as this without any substantiation, is kind of, well, my first thought was maybe his [Twitter] account was hacked," Hall said. "He is brash and outspoken, but what came out today is pretty outrageous." Hall also said such claims against the Bureau of Labor Statistics impugn the reputation of a very trusted agency.

"It is really unfortunate because people already have distrust of government and politicians, and to take something that has been done for 70 years and is pretty set in stone and allege without any substantiation that it is somehow corrupt is pretty bad," Hall said. "If you understand how these statistics are compiled there is nothing new that is being done here. These are government economists."

Noting the political influence on the claims, Hall said: "This is the silly season, but there used to be some limit to what you'd say, some line you didn't cross and that is why this is so unfortunate. If you look at countries that do manipulate their numbers like China, we've had long-established practices of many, many years and no one has ever contested this as somehow fraud-ridden."

William Schomberg, economics and markets editor for the Americas at Reuters, also defended the statistics: "The U.S. Government statistics office takes its job seriously and I have never seen any evidence that it is sensitive to any political influence." For Greg Ip, U.S economics editor for The Economist, manipulation of the statistics is not a valid claim.

"I have been covering these reports for well over a decade," Ip wrote in an email. "I cannot recall a single instance of the data being manipulated by anyone outside the BLS or even a credible accusation of it. The process, in my experience, is carried out with excruciating professionalism. BLS makes mistakes but they are of the nature of what happens when trying to measure a gigantic economy with precision. I would add that it's funny to raise accusations of manipulation now. Where were they when the numbers the morning after Obama's convention speech were horrible?" Steve Pearlstein, a Pulitzer Prize-winning business and economics columnist for The Washington Post, compared such claims to Nixonian paranoia.

"Richard Nixon was the last person who would claim that the Bureau of Labor Statistics was a political organization, and he was president at the time," Pearlstein said. "There is no evidence of it, these are just professional people who go to work every day, do their job and go home and are proud of the fact that they do their job and don't take any political direction from people." He called allegations of manipulation "a slur and a libel on hardworking, dedicated and competent public servants."

[RecycleMichael]

Yes, the liberal media didn't treat the story the same as they did with Bush.

But the far right wing media just called Obama a liar and slandered the non-partisan federal employees. They ranted all day that any good news about the economy had to be untrue.

[nathanm]

Yes, the liberal media didn't treat the story the same as they did with Bush.

The story is different than with Bush in 2003. At that time, total employment was just coming off a decline. At the present time, total employment is increasing and has been for almost two years now. At that time, other economic indicators were still showing a strong chance of further decline. (They couldn't have known at the time there was only one or two more months remaining of negative job growth ahead) At the present time other economic indicators are actually reasonably strong. Even construction employment appears to be doing slightly better.

[heironymouspasparagus]

From a right leaning website, so take it in consideration. Still, pretty interesting.

Apples and oranges.  In 2004, we had not moved from losing 800,000 jobs a month to gaining 100,000 per month - and gaining jobs for the last 2 1/2 years.  I was one of those out of work in 2004, and it was plenty bad - took another two years to find something - but most of the country was doing much better, much sooner.  This time was a much deeper hole and much longer persistence. 

Same misdirection - that is spelled "lie" - done then about how people quit looking for work.  Nobody I knew quit looking, they just stopped counting us when the unemployment ran out.  And it only went for a very short time compared to recent adventure.

[Conan71]

That big a change in one month really is suspect when trending has been stagnant to .1 one direction or the other recently.  Can anyone point to where a significant increase would be last month?  I think someone misplaced a decimal. 

In other news, U-6 unemployment remains at 23 million or so.  But hey, let's just ignore those people who finally quit looking for work because there weren't any jobs.  If the people who have been shuffled off the rolls since '08 were still counted, Obama would be running with a u/e rate of close to 12%.  That's not a record to be proud of.

[nathanm]

In other news, U-6 unemployment remains at 23 million or so.

Look deeper. Some 13 million of them haven't bothered to even look for work in over a year, a few million more are counted in U6 because they want to work, but are unable to work because they're caring for family and other things that keep them out of the work force despite having a preference for work.

It would be interesting to know more about those who want jobs but haven't looked for work in that lengthy period of time.

[heironymouspasparagus]

As with so many of these "tempest in a teapot" things that "you know who" trot out, it doesn't even come close to the miraculous recovery from inflation we were experiencing at the end of Jimmy Carter's term.

You all remember that, don't you - how we went from 15% inflation at the 1980 election down dramatically to only about 6% inflation after the Reagan inauguration.  Talk about RECOVERY!!!!  Whew!  Makes my head spin just reminiscing about it...

[nathanm]

As with so many of these "tempest in a teapot" things that "you know who" trot out, it doesn't even come close to the miraculous recovery from inflation we were experiencing at the end of Jimmy Carter's term.

You all remember that, don't you - how we went from 15% inflation at the 1980 election down dramatically to only about 6% inflation after the Reagan inauguration.  Talk about RECOVERY!!!!  Whew!  Makes my head spin just reminiscing about it...

You're not the only one who gets that..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-a-president-romney-would-have-obama-to-thank-for-an-economic-recovery/2012/10/05/bcce947c-0d6d-11e2-a310-2363842b7057_story.html

[heironymouspasparagus]

You're not the only one who gets that..

In Reagan's case it was even more stark...there was NO actual improvement in inflation for another couple of years.  What they did was change the way inflation was calculated.  15% the week before inauguration - 6% a couple weeks after.  Yeah, right.

The reason it escaped much attention was due to the return of the embassy hostages from Iran.  All due to an agreement put in place by Carter, signed sealed, but not delivered by the Iranians until just before midnight the day before inauguration.

[nathanm]

All due to an agreement put in place by Carter, signed sealed, but not delivered by the Iranians until just before midnight the day before inauguration.

You've got it backwards. The Iranians refused to negotiate with Carter because Reagan's people went behind his back and negotiated a deal, contingent on the hostages not being released until after the election, of course.

[heironymouspasparagus]

You've got it backwards. The Iranians refused to negotiate with Carter because Reagan's people went behind his back and negotiated a deal, contingent on the hostages not being released until after the election, of course.

It wasn't Reagan's people.  I got the time a little weird - the agreement was signed on the 19th, but the hostages weren't released until just after midnight of the 20th.  Last little bit of punishment for support of the Shah.  Here is a semi-literate synopsis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis

Then a few years later, Reagan started trading arms with them to help the hostage situation (different one) - get funding for the Nicaraguan situation.


Oh, and here is a fun little diversion for a quiet Sunday night....now I know I gotta buy at least a couple of school buses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lmY7K0OG4s

[Red Arrow]

You've got it backwards. The Iranians refused to negotiate with Carter because Reagan's people went behind his back and negotiated a deal, contingent on the hostages not being released until after the election, of course.

Carter was Carter

[nathanm]

Carter was Carter

Blame the victim, it's more fun.

[Red Arrow]

Blame the victim, it's more fun.

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