"You might find it remarkable that outlets touting their economic
foresightedness and keen analysis could be continually surprised about
the economy’s strength after 29 consecutive months of job growth, inflation steadily declining, durable goods having been up for three consecutive months, 35,000 new infrastructure projects, an extended period
in which real wages exceeded inflation and outsize gains for lower
wage-earners. It’s as though outlets are so invested in the narrative of
failure and imminent recession that reams of positive data have had
little impact on their 'narrative.' [snip]
"When the media consistently gets the big stories wrong or fails to cover major economic changes, one would hope they’d look back to explain why their coverage diverged from reality and do a better job of covering actual developments rather than GOP talking points, process stories (how Biden is 'selling' his plan) and polling. Unfortunately, waiting for the mainstream media to engage in self-reflection (e.g., maybe it overdid the 'But her emails' in 2016; maybe there was no red wave in 2022), let alone self-correction, might be a waste of time.
"If outlets are concerned about low trust in the media, explaining a historic economic transformation might help inform voters and leave the media less 'surprised' when the data comes back. Instead, they are invariably on to the next groupthink exercise, the next round of gloom-and-doom and the next batch of credulous coverage of Republican talking points." -- Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post, writing about one of our common topics: media malpractice in covering the President and the Democratic Party, in this case their largely successful economic policies. While nothing will ever be perfect for everyone in a nation as large and complex as ours, the figures Rubin cites in the first paragraph reflect a positive reality that the "doom-and-gloom" media get wrong time and again in their narratives. We've referred to it as the "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality that holds that the grimmer, more shocking the story, the more it attracts eyeballs.
It seems to us, though, that when there's a Republican administration, positive news is highlighted while "doom-and-gloom" news is ameliorated in a desire to appear neutral (forms of "bothsideism" and "whataboutism"). When there's a Democratic administration, not so much. Some of that is the product of corporate media ownership and priorities, part of it is because of a well- oiled Republican media operation, and part of it is the historic weakness of Democrats to hone a message and stay on it relentlessly. We see signs the latter is changing, but regardless, waiting for the media to do its job properly may be a waste of time, as Rubin says. That's why the rest of us need to continue to push back on Republican- fed narratives as much as we can in our own ways.
