Bloomberg

Forget the basics of supply and demand, just find someone to blame. As Congress takes new aim at speculators for the high price of gasoline, some media reports seem to be following suit. But as The Biz Flog explains this week, there is considerable debate over whether speculators should be blamed for the high cost of oil. June 23, the same day Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce…

General Motors has been in business since 1897, but there are fears now propagated in the media that the longtime American icon faces an uncertain future. Brian Williams raised the possibility of General Motors (NYSE:GM) going out of business on the June 26 "NBC Nightly News" to Jim Cramer, host of CNBC's "Mad Money." "[J]im, I know you talk about this, think about this everyday for a living…

“The most important reason [Al] Gore should be Vice President is that he's suffered and learned. He has the temperament some of us reach on our death beds,” former Time magazine Deputy Washington Bureau Chief Margaret Carlson trumpeted in a column posted Thursday on Bloomberg.com. In “Gore Has Right Stuff for Second Turn as No. 2,” Carlson effused: If there's anything we need to rescue us from…

The business press's recession obsession continues:A couple of weeks ago, in the wake of the initial first-quarter GDP growth reading of 0.6%, Rex Nutting at MarketWatch.com entertained us with the notion that an economy can be in a recession even while there is real, if anemic, economic growth.Today, Jeannine Aversa of the Associated Press, with the help of a number of economists, told us that…

During the 1992 presidential campaign, when incumbent Vice President Dan Quayle made a spelling mistake, the New York Times was all over it. It's clear from the Times's story that the rest of the media was also in full pursuit: So Jay Leno has a week's worth of new Dan Quayle jokes. At a school here, everyone was quite hush-hush the day after the visiting Vice President spelled potato wrong…

How many times will The New York Times publish a disreputable reporter's work before it learns its lesson? Perhaps the third time will be the charm. Alexei Barrionuevo has under come under fire for plagiarism on two separate occasions, but the Times printed a story March 27 ("Salmon Virus Indicts Chile's Fishing Methods") by Barrionuevo anyway, prompting a response from the salmon industry.…

This updates the "Supply-Side Stunner" post (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) from Tuesday. The business press has not yet noticed this news. The last Daily Treasury Statement for April published yesterday shows just how impressive what is probably the supply-side tax cuts' last hurrah really was:

President Bush is holding a press conference on the U.S. economy. I'll be blogging the questions to the president below. Video of Bush/Raddatz clash here (audio available here).Video of Stolberg and Ryan on recession here (audio here)My bottom line analysis (11:25): The two R's of bias from this Rose Garden presser: Martha Raddatz on Syria and numerous reporters on the dreaded R-word, recession.…

.... for what I believe is a painfully obvious reason. It is reports like the one written up by Shobhana Chandra at Bloomberg yesterday on household net worth that make you wonder if everyday US citizens will ever get the information needed to accurately evaluate what's going on in the economy without doing more digging than they have time for -- or that they should even have to do. Chandra's…

Early last month, when oil prices flirted with inflation-adjusted record highs, fears of sky-high gas prices were filtered through the media. CNBC's Erin Burnett gave viewers a frightening prediction of $4-a-gallon gasoline during a January 2 appearance on the NBC "Nightly News." The "Street Signs" anchor cited John Kilduff, the vice president of risk management at the MF Global Ltd.…

Worried about finding employment after losing your job because of this gosh-awful recession we're having? Oh, you haven't lost your job yet? Yeah, we aren't actually having a recession yet, but that's just details. But the show must go on, and so goes the January 23 "CBS Evening News." "It's a bumpy ride for the American worker as well. As the economy slows the unemployment rate is rising…

The headline "The Economy Sucks" might be something you'd expect to see in Rolling Stone or on Slate.com, but certainly not in a reputable news magazine, right? Yet, the January 21 issue of Newsweek defied expectations by using that for part of a headline for a one-sided, pro-Bill Clinton view of the economy. The article recalled the 1992 "It's the economy, stupid!" campaign as it tore down…

A lot of journalists have written off the possibility the economy can avert a recession. However, it isn't conventional wisdom that the economy is heading for a recession outside of the journalism world. Jack Welch, author of "Winning," appeared on MSNBC's January 14 "Morning Joe" to discuss the economy, the presidential race and professional football. Welch told viewers he didn't anticipate…

This is worse than a case of calling a glass "half-empty" when it is "half-full." This is like taking the glass and pouring it out. Deirdre Bolton, an anchor for Bloomberg TV, appeared on CBS's January 9 "The Early Show" to report on a survey of economists Bloomberg conducted January 3-8 about whether or not a recession is in the immediate future of the U.S. economy. "[W]ell, as you said the…