Saturday, September 8, 2012

During Democratic Convention, Two of Three Networks Ignore Dire Jobs Picture

The national unemployment rate is currently higher than when President Barack Obama took office, but he and many others have been making the case at this week’s Democratic convention that he should get four more years as president.

But the convention also falls just days before the August unemployment report comes out Sept. 7. According to Marketwatch, it is expected to show only 120,000 jobs added, much lower than July’s 163,000. It would also be lower than the jobs needed to break even in a given month, due to population growth. So it would make sense for the networks to at least mention unemployment in their evening reports Sept. 3-5. But only one of the three broadcast networks did that.

CBS “Evening News” mentioned the 8.3 percent unemployment rate or the “nearly 13 million” looking for work in four stories during that time frame, while ABC and NBC never mentioned it those first three nights of convention week.

More network stories, five total, mentioned that jobs are being created or added to the economy including one story in which San Antonio mayor Julian Castro claimed Obama has created 4.5 million “new jobs” and argued “that’s more than was created [under 8 years of Bush].” But Castro’s facts were very flawed.

Read more: http://www.mrc.org/articles/during-democratic-convention-two-three-networks-ignore-dire-jobs-picture

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