The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the unemployment numbers for October showing “fantastic” gains of 151,000 jobs, according to MSNBC, and an unchanged 9.6 unemployment rate.
CNN’s Christine Romans called it a “good report,” during “American Morning” and noted that it was the “first time in a very, very long time” enough jobs had been added in one month to keep up with new entrants to the workforce. Estimates of the number of jobs needed per month vary between 100,000 and 200,000.
But CNBC’s Erin Burnett overemphasized the “fantastic jobs number,” on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” claiming that “we are now seeing enough jobs added per month to try to bring that rate down mathematically.” Actually, October was a break even month, evidenced by the 14.8 million total unemployed workers in September and October.
Neither of the cable channels reminded viewers of the president’s promise to create 4 million jobs by the end of 2010. The country has lost a net total of 3,087,000 jobs since Feb. 2009, putting Obama more than 7 million jobs away from fulfilling that claim. That’s a number the media haven’t talked about.
Spinning unemployment reports isn’t unusual for the liberal news media. According to recent BMI analysis, the broadcast networks twisted jobs reports to boost Obama leading up to the 2010 midterms, but spun them against George W. Bush in 2005-06 before that election.
BMI found that under Bush, negative reports or negatively spun stories made up 58 percent. But under Obama, positive reports and positively spun stories accounted for 52 percent of the reports.
