Ask CBS News: Does Media Affect Economy?

"CBS Evening News" Anchor Katie Couric and Correspondents Field Viewer Questions

(CBS)  In our ongoing "Ask CBS News" segment, we answered a question about Friday's report from the Commerce Department that the recession was deeper than previously thought.

Recession Was Deeper Than Previously Thought

Viewers can leave questions on "CBS Evening News" Anchor Katie Couric's Twitter page or the CBS News Facebook page.

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A viewer asked: "How much of a role do you think the media itself, more specifically the constant negative reporting of the economy by the media, is to blame?"

CBS News Correspondent Anthony Mason answered that the negative news certainly contributes to the mood, but this pessimism really came from the near-death financial experience the country endured. Just as the optimism of the housing boom was probably inflated, the pessimism is probably excessive now too.

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[cjs_cnet_xyz]

The media skews the news with single-person stories while Americans grovel to find work and keep their homes. Who cares what Chelsea's wedding is like? Who cares if Bristol gets engaged?

Quit clouding the news with trivialities. Get back to who goes to jail for gaming the U.S. real estate market resulting in this "D"epression.

[fariborzzak]

yes they show everything is alright (but it is f.u.c.k. up)

[pragmatist1]

The recessions of the seventies and eighties were much worse than the one we're in now especially with the unemployment numbers. To hear the government and media tell it, we're all going to implode. They're scare-mongers and making it worse. Too many people are gullible and falling for these scam, which keeps people clinging to the government for answers and resolution, immobile and unmotivated.

[tsigili]

The government tries to impact the economy, through the media, by issuing propaganda, to convince the public of half truths, and lies with statistics.

While that has always happened, it becomes more offensive in this economy, as the lies are so outrageous, now.

[rocketjl]

I wish they did not, the media lies so much.

[jgg000101]

A President Obama intent on achieving his transformative goals despite the disagreement of the American people has powerful weapons within reach. In one hand, he will have a veto pen to stop a new Republican Congress from repealing ObamaCare and the Dodd-Frank takeover of banks.

In the other, he will have a fistful of executive orders, regulations and Obama-made fiats that have the force of law.

Under ObamaCare, he can issue new rules and regulations so insidiously powerful in their effect that higher-priced, lower-quality and rationed health care will quickly become ingrained, leaving a permanent stain.

Under Dodd-Frank, he and his agents will control all credit and financial transactions, rewarding friends and punishing opponents, discriminating on the basis of race, gender and political affiliation. Credit and liquidity may be choked by bureaucracy and politics ? and the economy will suffer.

He and the EPA may try to impose by "regulatory" fiats many parts of the cap-and-trade and other climate legislation that failed in the Congress.

And by executive orders and the in terrorem effect of an industrywide "boot on the neck" policy, he can continue to diminish energy production in the United States.

By the trick of letting current-law tax rates "expire," he can impose a $3.5 trillion 10-year tax increase that damages job-creating capital investment in an economy struggling to recover. And by failing to enforce the law and leaving America's borders open, he can continue to repopulate America with unfortunate illegals whose skill and education levels are low and whose political attitudes are often not congenial to American-style democracy.

A wounded rampaging president can do much damage ? and, like Caesar, the evil he does will live long after he leaves office, whenever that may be.

The overgrown, un-pruned power of the presidency to reward, punish and intimidate may now be so overwhelming that his re-election in 2012 is already assured ? Chicago-style.

[jgg000101]

CBS, while you are carrying obama's water, this is what the business community is experiencing and Investor's Business Daily is reporting.

Will Washington's Failures Lead To Second American Revolution?
By ERNEST S. CHRISTIAN AND GARY A ROBBINS
Posted 06:30 PM ET


The Internet is a large-scale version of the "Committees of Correspondence" that led to the first American Revolution ? and with Washington's failings now so obvious and awful, it may lead to another.

People are asking, "Is the government doing us more harm than good? Should we change what it does and the way it does it?"

Pruning the power of government begins with the imperial presidency.

Too many overreaching laws give the president too much discretion to make too many open-ended rules controlling too many aspects of our lives. There's no end to the harm an out-of-control president can do.

Bill Clinton lowered the culture, moral tone and strength of the nation ? and left America vulnerable to attack. When it came, George W. Bush stood up for America, albeit sometimes clumsily.

Barack Obama, however, has pulled off the ultimate switcheroo: He's diminishing America from within ? so far, successfully.

He may soon bankrupt us and replace our big merit-based capitalist economy with a small government-directed one of his own design.

He is undermining our constitutional traditions: The rule of law and our Anglo-Saxon concepts of private property hang in the balance. Obama may be the most "consequential" president ever.

The Wall Street Journal's steadfast Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote that Barack Obama is "an alien in the White House."

His bullying and offenses against the economy and job creation are so outrageous that CEOs in the Business Roundtable finally mustered the courage to call him "anti-business." Veteran Democrat Sen. Max Baucus blurted out that Obama is engineering the biggest government-forced "redistribution of income" in history.

Fear and uncertainty stalk the land. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke says America's financial future is "unusually uncertain."

A Wall Street "fear gauge" based on predicted market volatility is flashing long-term panic. New data on the federal budget confirm that record-setting deficits in the $1.4 trillion range are now endemic.

Obama is building an imperium of public debt and crushing taxes, contrary to George Washington's wise farewell admonition: "cherish public credit ... use it as sparingly as possible ... avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt ... bear in mind, that towards the payment of debts there must be Revenue, that to have Revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised, which are not ... inconvenient and unpleasant ... ."

Opinion polls suggest that in the November mid-term elections, voters will replace the present Democratic majority in Congress with opposition Republicans ? but that will not necessarily stop Obama.

(continued)

[larry0304]

Great idea! Don't report how brutal the economy is and may-be Americans won't notice it. Good Lord, the stupidity just keeps getting more and more unbelievable.

Perhaps a better question would be about how biased the liberal contingent of CBS,NBC and ABC is and how their corresponding drop in ratings suggests America is getting fed up with it.

The combined news coverage of those 3 stations on the Arizona immigration law was 10 unfavorable stories for every one that was favorable. That is NOT REPORTING NEWS BUT RATHER TRYING TO SHAPE OPINIONS.

The most amazing story is how even with the liberals media protecting Obama, his numbers continue to drop into Bush territory and that is STUNNING. Can you imagine where his poll numbers would be if the main stream liberal media ever discovered a thing called the truth?

[jgg000101]

I agree completely.

[erasmus111]

by larry0304 July 30, 2010 10:40 PM EDT
Great idea! Don't report how brutal the economy is and may-be Americans won't notice it.


The problem with the media is you can't depend on them to tell the actual truth. They spend more time speculating than giving actual facts. They blow things way out of proportion. They are like children in need of constant attention, and they will do whatever it takes to get it.

[billpl-2009]

news it's news anymore....it's all hype and distortion

journalists aren't journalists anymore...they're entertainers

...and we're the dopes who foot the bill


if you want "real" news, you can still find it....on Comedy Central

[_One_American____]

"Just as the optimism of the housing boom was probably inflated, the pessimism is probably excessive now too."

Not excessive - necessary.

Obama and the Democrats are like a loose cannon on a rolling ship at sea.

We have to throw the loose cannon overboard to save the ship.