June 15, 2004

Economy Up, Media Interest Down

The more the economy has improved, the less the news media has done stories on the economy. The downward trend in economic coverage began in April, according to this report [PDF file]. Ironically and coincidentally and no doubt completely unrelated to the decline in news media interest in the economy, April just happens to be about when the economic recovery accelerated, and job growth grew from a trickle to a flood and all the economic indicators surged sharply upward.

Meanwhile, the Tennessee news media, which fixated on the state's monthly revenue reports when they could be used to prop up the notion that the state faced a revenue shortfall (instead of an over-spending problem), largely ignores the monthly revenue reports now that they show a rapidly rising surplus. The New York Times' fabled motto is "All the News That's Fit to Print." But increasingly American journalism lives by the credo, All the News That Fit's Our Agenda.

And they wonder why the news media has little credibility with readers - and a shrinking audience.