Oh, Mr. Jennings, ab…

Oh, Mr. Jennings, about that annoying “objectivity” thing, here’s another reason why we’re a little more concerned about it than you appear to be.

When Bill Clinton ran for re-election in 1996, the unemployment rate was 5.2 percent, inflation was three percent and economic growth was 2.2 percent. Sound good? The economy is just as good, if not better, right now: the unemployment rate is 5.4 percent, inflation is 2.7 percent, and economists’ consensus forecast for economic growth this quarter is 3.7 percent.

So, objectively speaking, economically, things are pretty much the way they were in ’96. Well, except that all these “objective” reporters don’t seem to think so.

Yet a new study by Dan Gainor, Director of the MRC’s Free Market Project, found that while the national media mainly cheered the Clinton economy in 1996 (85 percent positive), reporters have mostly jeered the Bush economy in 2004 (77 percent negative). Two 2004 stories were judged as neutral.

The article goes on to detail the huge lopsided treatment of two equivalent economic situations. Is this the “objectivity” that journalists are trained for? Then once again I ask, why bother with the pretense of it?

The study also reports something I keep bringing up as well. The effect of 9/11 on the economy has been virtually ignored by Democrats and the press (proving again that the two terms are rather redundant).

No story in the FMP study quantified the job losses caused by 9/11, one million jobs lost in the 100 days after the attacks. Only six stories made any mention of terrorism or 9/11 at all. On October 8, in 11 stories on the new jobs data, only one mentioned 9/11. Just after the second debate in St. Louis that night, CNN’s John King previewed the third debate: “Mr. Bush will say recession, September 11, the shortest — one of the shortest recessions in history because of his tax cuts.”

I’m a little concerned that Peter Jennings is a little concerned about everybody wanting him to be objective. This study shows that there’s a long way to go before there’s anything close to objectivity in the MSM.

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