Good economic news is never bad enough for the liberal media.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently released an impressive report on job growth in July. Specifically, “Total non-farm payroll employment rose by 1.8 million in July, and the unemployment rate fell to 10.2 percent.” In context, economists had forecast a 1.48 million job increase and the unemployment rate to hover at 10.6 percent, according to CNBC. That means predictions were off by roughly 320,000 jobs. CNBC’s headline read: “Payrolls increase by nearly 1.8 million, topping expectations despite coronavirus resurgence.”
Instead of giving the American people straight reporting on the good news, multiple liberal outlets swatted down the significantly better-than-expected news and put negative spin on it.
CNN Business ran a negative story headlined, “US economy added 1.8 million jobs in July but still down nearly 13 million jobs during the pandemic.” That story was published just 28 minutes after the BLS report was released at 8:30 a.m., suggesting that CNN already knew how it was going to spin the BLS report before it was even released.
Its lede paragraph read: “The US economy added another 1.8 million jobs in July, a sharp slowdown from June and a small step for an economy that's still down 12.9 million jobs during the pandemic.” Nowhere in the report did CNN mention that the results had beaten Wall Street’s forecast of 1.48 million.
CNN conceded that it was the “third-straight month of improvement after the spring lockdown,” but the outlet proceeded to hammer in the second paragraph that it was fewer than the 4.8 million jobs added in June.
But CNN would later stealth edit the entire story to include positive points nowhere found in the originally published article.
CNN’s Twitter account also riddled the story with more negativity: “JUST IN: The US added another 1.8 million jobs in July, a sharp slowdown from June and a small step for an economy that's still down nearly 13 million jobs.”
The Associated Press was just as bad. In a story absurdly headlined “US adds 1.8 million jobs in a sign that hiring has weakened,” the outlet spun that the good jobs report was actually “evidence that the resurgent coronavirus is weakening hiring and the economic rebound.” Like CNN, AP neglected to mention that the jobs report had comfortably beaten the expectations of economists.
AP continued: “The economy is struggling to emerge from the devastating recession that caused the economy to shrink at a nearly 33% annual rate in the April-June quarter, the worst quarterly fall on record.”
But guess what. AP also stealth edited the entire story, including the headline, perhaps to tone down its one-sided take on the data a bit. For example, in the original second paragraph, AP said that “The hiring of the past three months has recovered only 42% of the jobs lost to the pandemic-induced recession.” That doom-and-gloom take was edited to be more neutral: “The hiring of the past three months has recovered 42% of the jobs lost to the pandemic-induced recession.” [Emphasis added.]
AP was sure to bleat to users on Twitter that the good BLS report wasn’t really good news at all: “BREAKING: Unemployment falls to 10.2% even as U.S. job growth slowed to 1.8 million in July under pressure from pandemic.”
NBC News was no better. Its story on the BLS report reeked of doom and gloom: “U.S. economy gains 1.8 million jobs as recovery loses momentum.” The piece cited Glassdoor Senior Economist Daniel Zhao for the negativity:
‘We are seeing evidence that the economic recovery is losing steam. It's not reversing, but it looks like growth is flattening out,’ said Daniel Zhao, senior economist at Glassdoor. ‘It seems like the recovery has slowed down and appears to be getting stuck in the doldrums.’
NBC News neglected to mention that Zhao also happens to be a small-time Democratic donor to former presidential candidate and President Donald Trump critic Andrew Yang.
NBC News proceeded to throw ice water on the good news:
With millions of Americans still out of work, there is a growing concern that temporary job losses are becoming permanent — even as the safety net for the jobless is shrinking.
The outlet also tweeted out the news with a negative take: “NEW: US economy gains around 1.8M jobs in July, unemployment rate drops to 10.2% as recovery loses momentum.”
Contact CNN at 1 (404) 827-1500, The Associated Press at 1 (877) 836-9477 and Global Head of NBC News Digital Catherine Kim at Global.Head.News@nbcuni.com and demand that the outlets stop putting biased negative spin on good economic news!
