Still Pushing Bad Economic News - Tell the Truth! 2004 - The Weekly Worst -- Media Research Center

The Weekly Worst

Still Pushing Bad Economic News;
Iraq's Ignorant Prime Minister

Tuesday, July 6, 2004

The so-called mainstream media never admit their liberal tilt, so the news analysts at the Media Research Center tirelessly document the media's bias and expose their left-wing agenda. The "awards" for last week's lowlights:

» Still Pushing Bad Economic News. Economic growth is brisk, inflation is tame, and more than 1.4 million jobs have been created since the last installment of the Bush tax cuts took effect last year, but network newscasts are still demoralizing viewers by emphasizing bad news. On Friday's NBC Nightly News, fill-in anchor Brian Williams wrapped the good jobs news in a dour spin: "Experts tonight say there's reason to worry because the job numbers came in below what they were expecting," he gloomily warned, adding that "any recovery in this country is a work in progress."

That's the same kind of negativity the CBS Evening News pushed on Wednesday, as business reporter Anthony Mason claimed a slight increase to a 1.25% interest rate meant "the era of cheap money is over." Instead of saying that the Federal Reserve's rate change ratified the recovery's growing strength, Mason stressed bank layoffs and hyped the harm to everyday consumers: "Your credit card interest rate will be rising. So will adjustable rate mortgages. And say goodbye to those zero percent auto loans."

For more, see the July 1 and July 6 CyberAlerts.

» Iraq's Ignorant Prime Minister. NBC's Tom Brokaw seemed stunned on Tuesday when the new Iraqi Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, said he believed Saddam and al-Qaeda were connected. "Prime Minister, I'm surprised," Brokaw told the new leader of Iraq, lecturing him that "the 9/11 Commission in America says there is no evidence of a ‘collaborative relationship' between Saddam Hussein and those terrorists of al-Qaeda." But Allawi stood his ground: "I believe very strongly that Saddam had relations with al-Qaeda."

Tom Brokaw was stunned when the Iraqi Prime Minster suggested Saddam and al-Qaeda were connected.

For more, see the June 30 CyberAlert.