Who would think the economy good?

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page this morning carries the unsurprising news that Americans think the economy is bad because they've been told it's bad.

The middle editorial, Media Bears, quotes an MRC study that shows "negative full length TV news stories on the economy outnumbered positive stories by an overwhelming ratio of 4 to 1,"

To cite just one example, a CBS Evening News story on July 22 said that the economy is "very tenuous. It could fall apart at any moment. One piece of bad news, one additional terrorist attack, one negative corporate earnings, and it goes right down again." Contrast that funeral dirge with what Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress that same day: "The outlook is one of sustained economic growth." And this was after Dan Rather had departed Planet CBS.

Media coverage of President Bush's tax cuts has been particularly slanted. During the 2003 tax-cut debate, three of every four major TV network news stories were negative. The favorite criticisms were liberal echoes that it would bust the budget and favor the rich. Earlier this year, a news story on National Public Radio announced that "as everyone knows, the primary cause of the budget deficit was the Bush tax cuts." No word yet on whom NPR is crediting with this year's revenue surge of $262 billion. Robert Rubin?

This is a great opportunity for bias in that they can just select the stories to present, the experts to cite, and write the headline. The economy is complex and partisan enough that you can always find somebody to say what you want.

Media and Blogging Posted by John Kranz at August 19, 2005 10:11 AM