MSNBC Headlines Distort The Facts

Well, our Residence Inn has free internet access, so I thought I'd take a quick look at MSNBC. I had heard earlier that the jobs report came in weaker than expected, although 112,000 new jobs were created in June. So what does MSNBC show in their headline?

The disappointing jobs report suggests the economy is cooling, making life easier for the Fed but harder for Bush’s campaign.

If you read the article, you'll see that every economist and analyst quoted said the report was good news. They cited the fact that the numbers represent steady growth, and in fact the Fed may not need to raise rates again in the short term. This is good news for all of us.

So how does MSNBC manage to take a positive story on the US economy, and state in the headline that this is bad news for Bush? The implication is that Bush's economy is now faltering, despite the fact that the news is clearly good, if not quite as good as analysts had expected. If the extreme bias of CNN and MSNBC wasn't evident before, this little example sealed the deal for me. These news outlets are not merely distributors of news, they are passively campaigning for John Kerry. The sad part is that most of the readers of those sites aren't even aware of the bias.

PS - It's hard to beat a rocky mountain summer night.