The jobs numbers came out this morning. This is how Fox broke the news to their viewers…
This is how NBCNews broke the news:
Say…
how about that honest reporting…
Joel L. Watts holds a Masters of Arts from United Theological Seminary with a focus in literary and rhetorical criticism of the New Testament. His interests include exploring the role of mimesis in human civilization, specifically in the study of religion and media, as well as science fiction and the way in which it has allowed mythology to be explored in light of scientific discoveries of the past century. He is the author of Mimetic Criticism of the Gospel of Mark: Introduction and Commentary (Wipf and Stock, 2013) and a co-editor and contributor to From Fear to Faith: Stories of Hitting Spiritual Walls (Energion, 2013).
Website: → Unsettled Christianity
Connect
“Wily Fox”? A case of name fitting reality.
Yeah, those right-wingers at HuffPo put the same spin on it: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/07/august-jobs-report_n_1864001.html
“Friday’s report was discouraging throughout. Hourly pay fell, manufacturers cut the most jobs in two years and the number of people in the work force dropped to its lowest level in 31 years.”
Say what? They report that the “number of people in the work force dropped to its lowest level in 31 years”, and you’re miffed at their *spin*?
Aren’t you alarmed at the facts they report?
(Psst: sarcasm)
Oh, sorry. I’m with you.
Joel,
Comparing the Fox headline with the NBC headline, it seems to me that the Fox headline is much more fair than the NBC headline. After all, the 96,000 figure is a setback, so the real news is not that the “US economy adds 96,000 jobs in August” (which would cause many uninformed people to think that that’s something good), but rather that the 96,000 figure is a low number (which is the more honest of the two interpretations). It seems to me that NBC is trying to make this look like good news, when in fact it isn’t!
In fact, NBC’s reference to a dropped unemployment rate needs to be qualified in order to give a fair interpretation, as the only reason it dropped is that the figure reflects only the number of people still bothering to *look* for work. “8.1%” doesn’t count those who’ve given up looking as among the “unemployed”.
The best headlines, in my opinion, are the ones that place the facts within their proper interpretative context.
One more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2199815/Obamas-DNC-2012-speech-Bleak-unemployment-numbers-morning-Obama-tells-DNC-problems-solved.html
(Please don’t take this as a Romney endorsement. Yuck. I’m just saying that this is being viewed as bad news by more than just, predictably, Fox News.)
Bad news for those still looking for work but good news for the money managers as they think this assures qe soon. More easy money anyone?
I always prefer to read either alternative news (not news owned by 1 of 2 people) or Foreign news..once people realize that both Democrats AND Republicans are basically the same party and neither one cares what their constituents want (the RNC and the DNC debacle where they asked the delegates to vote, and didn’t care what the vote as, the answer was prescripted)
BTW – everyone – this is great. The headlines are never the story. John, Steve, others – dead on.
Oh, but just remember one thing. The Republicans consistently want to cut the duration and amount of unemployment compensation to those that are unemployed. Democrats consistently want to extend the benefits. I’d say the unemployed numbers are not important in the election. If you are employed, you don’t care. If you are unemployed, you want the unemployment benefits extended, so you do not support the Republicans. People aren’t totally stupid. They do what’s best for them. If you are a small business you don’t like Democrats. If you are a working stiff (not a CEO), you like Democrats. Since you know deep down inside that your boss, is a Republican. I predict Romney will be crushed.
What if you think both parties don’t care about you at all, and are only in it for themselves? I run my own business and I think the Repubs are shafting me as much as the next guy. The left-right paradigm is a lie. The banksters run the country. Not politicians. Either Romney or Obama, globalism is the ultimate goal. They might make some people happy in the meantime, with the media bought, they just feed people pablum, and give Joe Sixpack a dole check, or let Johnny Tea party have his guns..bread and circus, and people will have no idea (or care) that their rights are being taken away from them. There’s been a left-right war on purpose the last couple of years…where almost a civil war could erupt..but you take away the government checks, there will be hell to pay. People don’t care WHO is in..they just want their bread and circuses. The movie “The Wild and Wonderful Whites” to me was just a microcosm of this country.
You might be right here but no one seems to be addressing the real problems, they just think that more and more borrowing will fix the problems. Here is a fairly good view of the problem written by a someone that lives rather close to the Whites. We used to be engineers with the same company and probably have different political views but we mostly agree with what is coming regardless of who wins the Presidency. Actually Congress is more important than the President if they would stop shirking their duty.
http://sundaygazettemail.com/Opinion/OpEdCommentaries/201209070172
I’m looking forward to reading that article after I finish some work first..congress has dropped the ball big time. In the meantime, here is one of my favorite interviewers (using the Socratic method of interviewing), to probe politicians.he is amazing.and also hated by most politicians. If more people would do socratic interviewing, I think we could actually hole these guys accountable
[...] Joel looks at the differences in the treatment of the jobs numbers between news channels. Fox is anything but fair and balanced. [...]