Welcome To Zelo Street!

This is a blog of liberal stance and independent mind

Friday 6 May 2011

More Jobs In The USA ... Or Maybe Not

Another day, another example of the slavishly agenda driven hackery that drives standards steadily downhill at the Maily Telegraph, with a characteristically slanted piece on the job market in the USA from Richard Blackden.

The headline is unequivocal: “Global markets bounce on surprise rise in US jobs”. So there must be more jobs in the USA. Well, yes and no: there was a net 244k increase in the number of new jobs in April, but the unemployment rate went up, to a full 9%.

Putting these facts together in a headline might be more balanced, as in this report originally sourced from Reuters and published by the Huffington Post, which contains this statement: “Gains in April marked seven straight months of net job creation, but remained too little to make much of [a] dent on the pool of 13.7 million Americans out of work [my emphasis]”.

The Telegraph report also fails to provide context when it talks of stock market rises, only later conceding that this is merely regaining ground lost earlier in the week. Likewise the rise in the US Dollar: it still (at 1800 hours BST) requires 1.44 Dollars to buy one Euro, an exchange rate around 15% better for the latter than when it launched.

Only later in the piece is it conceded that the increase in US employment is down to the policies of the Fed and the Obama administration, and that almost six million US citizens have been without jobs for over six months.

To put the facts in an even and balanced way should not be a problem for any media outlet. Especially a title that still pretends to be a paper of record, like the Maily Telegraph.

No comments: