All the news that’s fit to hide

We’ve discussed the MSM-imposed blackout on good news from Iraq, but elements of the MSM are also doing their best to hide or downplay good economic news, as well. For example, on Friday the government reported the employment figures for November 2005. In that month, employers added an estimated 215,000 jobs to their payrolls. A year of such job growth would yield about 2.5 million new jobs, and it turns out that the November figures were about average for the first 8 months of 2005. Only Hurricane Katrina interrupted this remarkable expansion, and it did so only for two months.

So how did the MSM react? My conservative cousin from New York reports:

The New York Times chose to downplay yesterday’s stellar job creation report by placing the news in its Business Section instead of on the front page. Back in 2001 and 2002, the front page of the newspaper featured a drumbeat of negative news. And, recently this newspaper was prominently forecasting long term economic dislocations as a result of the Administration’s supposedly callous response to Hurricane Katrina.

Nowhere in the article is any credit given to the Administration’s policies. The headline proclaims “Jobs Surged Last Month In Rebound From Storm”. Get it the good economic news has nothing to do with the Bush tax cuts or free trade agenda. It is merely a fortuitous reaction to an act of God.

Fortunately, it’s difficult over time to hide good economic news. People know what prices they pay at the gas pump and elsewhere, shareholders know what the stock market is doing, and folks know if they and their neighbors are employed. Right now, all of these factors are working in favor of the Bush administration and the American people.

UPDATE: The Washington Post has displayed the same pattern of reporting. Via NRO’s Corner.

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