The U.S. unemployment rate dropped to the lowest level in seventeen years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ October jobs report.
The report also showed 261,000 jobs added, but ABC didn’t bother covering the good economic news on Nov. 3. World News Tonight ignored the report, but found time to cover a study blaming fossil fuels for “man-made” global warming.
ABC’s competitors — CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt — both covered the positive economic story that night.
The BLS released the report on Nov. 3, showing that in October the national unemployment rate fell to just 4.1 percent and 261,000 new jobs were created.
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Part of the jobs growth came “as businesses in Texas and Florida reopened after the hurricanes,” according to CBS Evening News temporary anchor Anthony Mason.
According to NBC's Lester Holt, the jobs report showed a “healthy” bounce back from September’s slowdown due to the hurricanes. Holt noted the unemployment rate does not include people who have stopped looking for jobs altogether.
Instead of reporting the good jobs news, World News Tonight touted the Climate Science Special Report from multiple federal agencies “finding global warming is largely man-made” and partially due to “the burning of fossil fuels.” While the report itself is new, its claims are a repeat of what climate change activists and the media have been hyping for years.
According to Muir, the study also claimed “climate change is to blame for record high temperatures and the growing frequency of floods, hurricanes and heat waves.”
Although only ABC’s evening news program ignored the jobs report this time, all three networks have ignored encouraging economic reports in the past, including the estimated 3 percent GDP growth announced in late October 2017. In April and May of this year, the networks also focused on job losses 8 times more than job growth.
Correction: An earlier version of the this story incorrectly stated the number of job gains as 291,000. The number has been corrected. MRC Business regrets the error.
