Because the Media Research Center got a pot of money some years ago “in memory of Dr. Keith C. Wold” — a longtime MRC funder whose family members have served on the MRC’s board of trustees — to use for reporting on business and economics, the right-wing blog that currently passes for CNSNews.com is apparently stuck writing posts about that, albeit with the usual CNS mandate to downplay good economic news when it happens under a Democratic president. A July 7 post by Craig Bannister picked up the cherry-picking-bad-news strategy used by CNS writer Susan Jones, who lost her job when the MRC blew up CNS:
Led by continued growth in government, the unemployment rate fell 0.1 point to 3.6% in June – though, non-farm employment and wages recorded lackluster gains – according to seasonally-adjusted data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Compared to May, employment in the non-farm sector was up 209,000 jobs last month – falling far short of the monthly average increases for both the first six months (278,000) of this year and full-year 2022 (399,000).
Employment in government increased by 60,000 in June, as employment continued to trend up in state (+27,000) and local government (+32,000). Overall, government has added an average of 63,000 jobs per month thus far in 2023 – more than twice the average of 23,000 per month in 2022.
Faltering market conditions reduced more American workers to part-time status in June, as the number of persons employed part-time for economic reasons increased by 452,000 to 4.2 million, partially reflecting an increase in the number of persons whose hours were cut due to slack work or business conditions.
It wasn’t a group of bullet points after the eighth paragraph of his post that Bannister got around to mentioning that more Americans were working.
A July 12 post by Bannister seemed disappointed that inflation is easing, if the headline is any indication: Despite Cost of Shelter, Inflation Eases Compared to Year-Ago, when 9.1% Increase Was Highest in More than 40 Years.”
Bannister reprised another dishonest reporting trick in a July 21 post:
States with Republican governors dominate the lists of both the states with the lowest, and record-lowest, unemployment rates, according to statistics for June 2023 released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Out of the 10 states with the lowest unemployment rates last month, eight boast Republican governors, as Maryland (#5) and Maine (#8) were the only Democrat-led [sic] states to make the cut:
As we’ve noted when CNS did this previously, most of those Republican-led states tend to be sparsely populated compared to other states.