The media is failing the public on the good news about jobs

[mcar]

The media is failing the public on the good news about jobs
The job market is great right now. If people think it’s the opposite, some part of the blame falls on us.
By Margaret Sullivan
Columnist
Today at 7:00 a.m. EDT

The unemployment rate is at an encouragingly low point. Less than 4 percent of the labor force is actively seeking work. And the latest monthly Labor Department report showed another healthy spike in the number of new jobs — they’ve been steadily on the rise for many months in a row.

But if you ask regular Americans about the jobs climate, a surprising number of them seem to think the opposite is true. One recent poll found that more respondents have it completely backward: 37 percent of the public assumes that jobs were actually lost over the past year; only 28 percent realized, correctly, there had been a gain. Among Republicans, the false belief is worse; nearly half believe jobs were lost....

I’m less convinced that the press purposely is out to get Biden. For one thing, that would require more forethought and coordination than the mainstream media is capable of. Biden’s press coverage has been pretty negative, but that has more to do with the media’s addiction to conflict and the unending desire for a cohesive narrative. (“Democrats in disarray” is a favorite trope.)...

If we’re putting information out there, truthfully and in real time, and people aren’t getting it, some significant share of the blame falls on us.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/04/10/job-market-unemployment-good-news-media-fail/

[yardwork]

1. I see ads here in central NC referring to Biden as the worst president ever.

Nobody pushes back on this. Where is the outrage.

[mcar]

2. Media pushes the narrative

and then says, who us?

[yardwork]

3. Here on DU I've just been accused of "authoritarian speak" for mentioning propaganda.

Apparently it is now "authoritarian" to remind others of the existence of propaganda funded by authoritarians like Putin and Trump.

Kind of like being "intolerant" of the Klan.

[mcar]

5. Good gad

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. Absolutely failing. Both-sides-ism is bad enough, but unbalanced both-sides-ism is worse

When tRump did awful things, the media knocked him, but only so much and not enough. The net effect was normalizing tRumpism to some extent.

When Biden accomplishes good things, the media knock him, but too much. The net effect is engendering upset and unjustified outrage.

tRump goes to 11 on bad crap, media response is at level 5.
Biden has a few level 3 blips, media response is against him at level 5.

That is unbalanced.

[mcar]

6. Exactly

Media reports on TFG news but then overdoes it on Democratic "bad" news so they can appear fair and balanced.

Thus we had how many hundreds of "but her emails" front page stories in 2016.

[yardwork]

7. Well said.

[yardwork]

8. Well said.

[PortTack]

9. Exactly! In this unstable environment we do not have the luxury of being neutral

If you are neutral, it’s no different than being on the side of the fascist anti democracy cult.

Choose a side FGS!!

[uponit7771]

12. +1,

[Hoyt]

10. Happy about recovery. But fact is, we are roughly equivalent to where we were in 2019.

That's still a terrific achievement. We, and other countries, could have well gone down the tubes in 2020 and 2021.

Any comparisons of 2022 vs COVID years need an asterisk/footnote.

[uponit7771]

11. K&R, Wages rose 5.6% YoY !!! So even inflation is not historically gapped

[gulliver]

13. We're letting the Republicans drown us out with crazy

Yes, the media are absolutely terrible. They make it their jobs to "analyze" and tell their viewers what to think, but they're just inept at analysis. They're trying to be "emotional" and trade on the emotions of their audience. They don't think well, and they don't support their opinions with anything but superficialities. Or, worse, they just validate and blithely repeat the whines of Republicans as if they're credible.

With exceptions (Biden and Psaki come to mind), the Dems coddle the media and show it deference way too much. There's a difference between "correcting the media's mistakes" and assaulting it like a thug by calling it "fake news." Dems need to find that happy medium.

[mcar]

14. I agree that there should be a more concerted effort

on the part of Democrats to hold the media accountable. It's hard to do when a portion of your party spends most of their time trashing Democrats in said media.