TNS: Redefining ‘the Economy’
TNS Weekend
December 4, 2005
Media Analysis:
Corporate Journalists View Economy Through Bosses’ Lenses
by Brian Dominick
You could barely turn a page or channel last week without hearing some pundit disguised as a reporter or anchorperson beaming about how great the US economy is doing this holiday season. Indeed, recent indicators have offered a delightful early Christmas present to the privileged classes, who define economic health according to corporate profits and volumes traded in various markets.
The notoriously liberal Washington Post covered the economy like an Olympic event in today’s edition. “Defying hurricanes and inflation, rising interest rates and political gridlock, the US economy demonstrated its remarkable strength and stamina last week.” (”The Economy Grabs the High Ground,” 12/5)
By aggressively quoting economists whose pro-business biases are not in dispute, while ignoring progressive experts more oriented toward workers, children, the elderly and poor people, the nation’s major papers are able to shift the entire debate with almost unflinching consistency.
“It looks like consumers will be in a more giving mood,” Gary Thayer, chief economist at A.G. Edwards & Sons, said in a Baltimore Sun article (”Positive Reports Project Strong Economy,” 11/30). The Sun did not clarify whether Thayer was tickled because consumers will be giving to each other or, by spending their hard-earned dollars (plus lots and lots of credit), they will be giving to his brokerage-firm colleagues and clients.
This grinning, thumbs-up evaluation of America’s economic report card is rendered altogether more bothersome by the inclusion in some bright-and-rosy articles of one or two figures suggesting perhaps the working poor are not fairing so well. This notice is invariably buried in the last third of the article, is well-tempered, kept as brief as possible and focused narrowly on a particular area where there is “room for improvement” – if it exists at all.
“The nation’s economy demonstrated just how sturdy it is,” beamed an AP story last week (”U.S. GDP Rises in 3Q Despite Hurricanes,” 11/30), “posting its strongest quarterly showing in more than a year despite the Gulf Coast hurricanes.” You had to read down to the fifteenth paragraph to notice any mention of the economy’s impact on working people.
But even then, reporter Jeannine Aversa was sure only to mention job figures, which economists predicted (she duly noted) would rebound quickly. And they did go up, though enough to provide even inadequate work for everyone looking. But why mention consumer confidence and spending, as Aversa did in her piece, without also mentioning consumer debt and bankruptcy rates, which are at staggering levels nationwide?
When those better-than-originally-feared jobs numbers for November came out late last week, the corporate media suddenly decided they are a significant indicator of economic health. No longer contradictory Paragraph 15 material in stories about the otherwise burgeoning economy, they were now making headlines. Taking their cues from the White House, papers ran cheerleading stories all weekend.
Here’s the way the Associated Press handled economic news for today’s papers: “Eager to rescue approval ratings dragged low by the Iraq war, President Bush embraced an upbeat employment report Friday and pronounced the future of the US economy ‘as bright as it’s been in a long time.’ … With recent economic indicators showing strong growth, low inflation, productivity gains, lower gasoline prices, a strong housing market, and increases in consumer confidence and business investment - in addition to the good jobs report – the White House concluded the time was ripe to trumpet the string of good news.” (”Bush Welcomes Good News on Economy,” 12/5)
Strange how the AP – which like most corporate, public and even independent media is driven in large part by whatever the current president thinks is the most politically valuable item to seize – did not lead any stories with presidential silence on economic matters this time two months ago when the nation’s ever-fluctuating job numbers were in the toilet.
But even where apparently positive figures enable the major media to act as if jobs are an important factor in their investor-centric assessment of the economy, other biases emerge. Most failed to mention, for instance, that November’s gain of 215,000 jobs were mostly in the low-paying service and retail sectors, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report. Fewer still noted that unemployment among black Americans actually went up by the largest percentage since at least the 1970s, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis. Most also overlook the Bureau’s determination that available hours are declining for wage workers. And what about the inconvenient fact that wages are not rising fast enough to keep up with inflation?
All these details aside, the national unemployment rate is holding steady at 5 percent. That means one in every twenty adults is looking for a job and cannot find one, and more still have given up and resigned to poverty. (Well, that isn’t quite true – newspaper publishers gather with society types in groups of twenty all the time, with none in the cluster being unemployed; so it’s not one in every twenty; it’s probably more than one among your twenty closest American friends.)
Meanwhile, when other humane criteria are applied – such as real wages (”How Good is America’s Economy at Creating Jobs?” Center for Economic and Policy Research, 10/18); access to basic necessities like food, shelter and health care (TNS, 11/2; TNS 11/23); and the gap between rich and poor (TNS, 10/18) – we see an altogether worse picture.
How can an economy with such problems be considered “booming”? Because having everyone able to make ends meet would be harmful to the value of the dollars people who matter have accumulated at record rates.
“We’re back in very good shape,” banker-economist Richard DeKaser assured Bloomberg News in a widely published story, without noting who “we” referred to (”U.S. Added 215,000 Jobs Last Month,” 12/2). “We’re right at full employment,” DeKaser continued, with Bloomberg making no note of the irony. Then he showed the reason elites in his industry are excited about job gains: “This is what’s going to continue to motivate the Fed to raise [interest] rates.”
Working Americans are struggling to make ends meet. When millions of people will be choosing between heat and food (medical care is off the table for many), the economic diagnosis is grim, and to portray it in any other light is to shed one’s humanity.
The corporate media, almost without exception, are exposing their real biases and perspectives, and it isn’t pretty. They believe – and very understandably so, given their commercial, profit-driven nature – that the health of the US economy is determined by the lot of its wealthiest classes. Who could seriously expect them to view the story through any other lens?