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Pick your dismal economic statistic. All three newscasts covered the rise in the unemployment rate--Betsy Stark on ABC, Anthony Mason on CBS, CNBC's Trish Regan on NBC--and all three cited the number of jobs lost since the recession began in December 2007: 5.1m. Stark used the number of states whose unemployment rate is worse than 10%: seven. Mason used the underemployment rate, including those who have given up looking for work and those involuntarily working part-time: 15.6%. Regan told us that even corporations that are still making profits are reducing payroll: IBM.
Both Mason and Stark consulted the crystal balls of unidentified "economists." Economists say that "the worst months may now be behind us. While the economy will continue to lose jobs the pace of those losses should begin to slow"--CBS' Mason. Economists say that "improvements in the job market lag the stock market by several months and the best we can hope for right now is for the job losses to get smaller"--ABC's Stark.
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