An estimated 200,000 new jobs were created in December and the unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent. That's good news, but it's far from the whole story. Unfortunately, too many journalists fail to give readers the rest of the story.
Take today's reporting by The Hill's Vicki Needham and Ian Swanson. Here's the top of their story on the new job numbers:
"The economy added 200,000 jobs in December and the jobless rate fell to 8.5 percent, giving a boost to President Obama.
"The 8.5 percent unemployment rate is the lowest the jobless rate has been in three years. The figures suggest the labor market is starting to expand more strongly after years of sluggish growth."
Those three sentences are true as far as they go but they ignore the facts that would put them in a broader and more accurate context.
For example, a more accurate statement would be: "The 8.5 percent unemployment rate is the lowest the jobless rate has been in three years and the lowest it has been since President Obama said his $787 billion economic stimulus program would keep it below 8 percent."
That Obama promised his massive federal spending program would drop unemployment below eight percent and keep it there is nowhere mentioned by Needham and Swanson.
But they aren't alone in ignoring this important contextual fact about the current unemployment rate. Over at The Washington Post, reporter Michael Fletcher also ignores it. So does The New York Times' Shaila Dewan. And The Los Angeles Times' Don Lee. Luca de Leo at The Wall Street Journal similarly ignored it.
All of them do, however, offer either their own view or those of "experts" saying variations on the theme that the economy is picking up steam, recovery is gaining strength and the future looks brighter.
That is a context but of a different sort and one that echoes the Obama White House's talking points for the president's re-election campaign.
But I'm sure that's purely coincidental, aren't you? After all, these are objective journalists, right?
