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A pair of headlines virtually tied for Story of the Day status. All three newscasts led with July's jobless data. They counted 247,000 more layoffs and calculated an unemployment rate of 9.4%, marginally better than in June. Yet the continuing vociferous protests against healthcare reform at Congressional town hall meetings attracted fractionally more attention, pipping joblessness for the top spot. CBS anchor Katie Couric took off the long weekend with Jeff Glor in the substitute's chair.

"At least the country is losing jobs more slowly," shrugged CNBC's Erin Burnett. All three newscasts--Burnett on NBC, Betsy Stark on ABC and Anthony Mason on CBS--repeated the same spin on July's statistics to make them seem sort of positive: in the last three months, layoffs have been only half as bad as they were during the first three months of 2009. "The bad news is getting better," was the cold comfort offered by CBS' Mason while ABC's Stark called it "another sign the worst is behind us."

Can we get real here, please? "Appalling," declared ABC's Stark. Then all three repeated the same spin on July's statistics to make them seem especially negative: for the first time ever the number of jobless Americans who have been unsuccessfully looking for work for at least six months exceeds 5m. On Thursday CBS' Cynthia Bowers warned that 1.5m unemployed will become ineligible for jobless benefits by the end of the year, with 17 states already being forced to borrow federal funds to keep benefit checks from bouncing. Now CBS' Mark Strassmann points out that layoffs cause longterm damage to a worker's wages, citing the results of a recent study: "Most people who lose a job are still earning less 15 or 20 years later."

Andrew Tyndall 8/10/09 3:53:40 pm

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