posted on January 26, 2006 09:31:57 AM new
Who still believes the MSM isnt liberal controlled?
by Randy Hall
CNSNews.com Staff Writer/Editor
January 26, 2006
(CNSNews.com) -- More than 2 million new jobs were created in 2005, but the broadcast networks instead emphasized such negatives as corporate layoffs and outsourcing, according to a study released Wednesday by a group dedicated to challenging misconceptions in the media about free enterprise.
The Free Market Project (FMP) report, Hit Job, is the result of a detailed analysis of job and employment coverage by all three broadcast networks -- ABC, CBS and NBC. The study examined 151 stories on the 2005 evening news shows to assess how they had reported on both job losses and gains during a year of strong employment growth.
"With the president's upcoming State of the Union address on Jan. 31, the economy will come under fresh scrutiny, so it is essential to separate the facts from the media spin," said Dan Gainor, director of the FMP, which is a division of the Media Research Center, the parent organization of Cybercast News Service.
"More than 4.6 million jobs have been added since May 2003 -- 31 straight months of positive job growth," Gainor added. "Unemployment dropped down to 4.9 percent, lower than the average of all three recent decades."
Nevertheless, based on its study, the FMP arrived at the following conclusions:
-- Job losses, not gains: The networks focused on job losses in slightly more than half the reports (76 out of 151). Just 35 percent of the stories addressed job gains (53 out of 151). In one typical report, Jim Acosta of the "CBS Evening News" left his viewers with a memorable image of the 8,700 job cuts at General Motors in his Nov. 21 story: "Just three days before Thanksgiving, GM is carving up its work force like a Butterball turkey."
-- Government spending promoted: Two of the big Washington stories -- the transportation bill and cutbacks at military bases -- showed how hypocritical the media were. The $284 billion transportation bill was filled with pork but created thousands of new jobs that news reports barely mentioned. However, when military bases were cut to save $48 billion over 20 years, the news shows did more than three times as many stories bemoaning the job losses.
-- 283,000 jobs ignored: Initial unemployment reports were later revised, but the networks ignored those revisions. In 2005, most of those changes involved the addition of jobs, so network news ignored nearly 300,000 jobs in all of the stories, except those few that included cumulative totals.
-- ABC the best network: ABC presented the highest percentage of stories about job gains of all three networks. In addition, "World News Tonight" did nearly as many stories about jobs gained as a result of the transportation bill as it did about jobs lost due to the military base cutbacks.
-- CBS the worst: By embracing the highest percentage of job-loss stories and the lowest percentage of stories about job gains, CBS presented a skewed picture of employment.
Reporter Trish Regan's July 20 broadcast on the "CBS Evening News" was one of the year's worst, according to FMP. After airing a quote from Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan about "sustained economic growth," Regan allegedly undermined it. "But his sunny forecast isn't being felt on the factory floor -- Kodak cutting up to 10,000; Hewlett-Packard 14,500 layoffs -- or on the streets, where reality trumps forecasts."
Regan had opened her segment with the following: "Twenty-five thousand layoffs and more on the way. I'm Trish Regan with why the jobs picture is looking very 'pink' these days."
"Colored reporting like that has left the Bush administration's economic record black and blue," Gainor said. "There are always sectors of the economy or regions of the country that aren't doing as well as the overall economy. Technology changes and some industries get left behind.
"At the same time, new technologies, companies and even whole industries are being created," he added. "The media need to provide an accurate portrayal of the nation at large to stave off irrational fears of an economic downturn."
"“More Iraqis think things are going well in Iraq than Americans do. I guess they don’t get the New York Times over there.”—Jay Leno".
