I quit watching MSNBC for obvious reasons; tried ABC (blecch), tried NBC and decided that I could not stomach Brian Williams, and finally settled on CBS but am having trouble with that one.
They did a piece last night, for instance, on the killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist by "somebody," without speculating on who might have done it, and at the end of the piece said that, "Last Sunday Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told CBS News that Iran was within one year of being able to build a nuclear weapon."
Actually, what Panetta said to CBS on that network's Face The Nation was, "Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon, no."
It's difficult to take our any of our news media seriously when all of last month we were being told what a booming event the current Christmas shopping season was, with malls crowded, deals being offered, stores being open long hours and shoppers buying at a frenetic pace, and that all of this was turning the economy around and look at how low the unemployemnt application numbers are going.
And today we see that December consumer spending was, in fact, less than stellar; rising 0.1% for the month after a 0.3% increase the previous month. Not only that, but unemployment applications are rising again, just 1000 short of the 400,000 mark as employers discard holiday temporary help, which surprises everyone for some strange reason.
Anything that happens is reported as a "Happening!" and "a trend!", and of course so-called economists and politicians jump all over it and pat themselves on the back.
ReplyDeleteUm, trends happen over time, not as snapshots. And news items and political posturing are carefully worded and parsed. The media outright lies. Sorry, the word is obfusticates. And statistics can be manipulated toward ones desired outcome.
The best example is unemployment is going down - simply becasue the long term unemployed and people no longer eligible for unemployment benefits are no longer being counted.
Fancy words and stats do not change reality.