I just noticed that my blog has been visited 500 times since December 1st, when I started keeping track using
Site Meter. Not bad, huh?
I started to feel really cool when I saw that I'd had 500 visitors in just over two months, but then I looked at the traffic report and saw that number 500 was just my mom stopping by to look at pictures of her grandchildren. The coolness feeling went away immediately.
Still, 250 visitors a month isn't too shabby, at least not for this little experiment in self-expression I've got going here.
I'd like to thank The Media, the Democrats (especially Ted Kennedy), seeker-sensitive churches, Hollywood, and Arminians everywhere for giving me opportunities to comment on their hypocrisy, biblical inneptitude, and all-around sinfulness. Without you, there would be nothing for me to write about.
And, of course, I'd like to thank my mom, even if she's just looking for pictures of Pete and Elsie.
For most folks, no news is good news; for the press, good news is not news.
- Gloria Borger
The US Dept. of Labor reported on Friday that unemployment for January dropped to the lowest point since July of 2001, dropping to 4.7%, a .2% drop from December. That's great news, especially considering The Media has spent the last two years reporting on Bush's "jobless recovery." One would expect that they would be thrilled to report a significant drop in unemployment, but NewsBusters.org reports that prime time network news had little use for this information. They had time to cover Muslim outrage over some cartoons, Bush's wire tapping "scandal," and some negative numbers from the stock markets. Brian Williams, of NBC, had several seconds to devote to the story, as quoted below:
There is news on the economy tonight. Job creation was solid last month, it turns out. Payrolls grew by 193,000 in January, a bit below what was forecast, but impressive nonetheless. The unemployment rate dropped two-tenths of a percent to 4.7, the lowest it's been since July 2001. The news stoked inflation fears on Wall Street, and stocks finished lower today. The Dow off more than 58 points. Nasdaq was down just under 19. For the week's trading, the Dow was down almost 114. Nasdaq lost nearly 42 points this week alone."
Let's look a little closer at the way this story is presented:
- "…it turns out" - Williams starts with an assumption that the numbers should be bad, but "as it turns out," they were actually, surprisingly, good.
- "a bit below what was forecast, but impressive nonetheless." - To his credit, Williams describes the report as "impressive," but then qualifies it as being below the forecast estimates.
- "stoked inflation fears" - No good news goes unchallenged on network news. After lamenting a jobless recovery for months, a drop in unemployment is portrayed as a threat to the economy!
- "The Dow, off more than… Nasdaq lost nearly 42 points this week alone." - Lest you get the idea that the economy is doing well, Williams reminds us that both markets were down on the day, and the week. This convenient little statistic completely ignores the reality that both the Dow and Nasdaq are up over the last six months, or the economic reality that markets move up and down in the short-term, no matter how healthy the economy is. This makes daily and weekly numbers a very poor tool for measuring economic health, unless you are trying to draw a politically motivated point from them.
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