The glaring asymmetry in how economic news gets framed ... reveals how media reporting often amounts to partisan advocacy masquerading as journalism.

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Predictably but nevertheless regrettably, important economic reporting that Americans receive varies according to which party occupies the White House.  

A healthy democratic society depends upon a free media that serves as a watchdog, holding government accountable and providing Americans with data needed to make informed decisions. In today’s climate of selective outrage and open journalistic partisanship, however, the mainstream media has instead devolved into a reliable auxiliary of the political left.  

Nowhere is that clearer than in the realm of economic news.  

Specifically, treatment of positive economic news under Donald Trump versus negative news under Joe Biden illustrates that insidious disparity perfectly.  

Last week, the federal government announced that the U.S. economy exceeded analysts’ expectations for the 2nd quarter with solid annual 3% growth in gross domestic product (GDP), the broadest measure of economic health.  For perspective, that matches average annual growth rates of the U.S. economy since World War II.  

By way of contrast, Barack Obama achieved an average annual GDP growth rate of just 2.3%, despite inheriting a rebounding economy from George W. Bush, even while claiming to have “saved the economy from the next Great Depression.”  Facts are facts.  

Rather than report last quarter’s unexpectedly rapid growth as welcome, however, and certainly not acknowledging Trump’s pro-growth policy framework of tax cuts and deregulation that encourage growth, the media generally chose to qualify, nitpick or outright dismiss the positive news.  They focused on allegedly troubling underlying numbers, speculated that the surprising growth might be unsustainable, warned of possible trade wars looming on the horizon or attributed the growth to temporary sugar highs.  

The dominant theme was skepticism at best, naked cynicism at worst.  

Now contrast that behavior with treatment of GDP reports under Joe Biden.  

For decades, economists’ textbook definition of a “recession” was two or more consecutive quarters of economic contraction, or negative GDP growth.  

When the federal government reported economic contraction of 1.6% and 0.9% in the first two quarters of 2022, however, that definition of an economic recession was rewritten overnight.  The media and its favored experts began contorting themselves into semantic pretzels.  

Most hilariously, Biden White House Council of Economic Advisors spokesman Jared Bernstein insisted that, “Based on consumer spending, based on payroll employment, based on where the unemployment rate is, I think we can confidently say that these numbers that we’re posting are very much inconsistent with a recessionary call, given where we are right now.”  

Here’s the problem:  Just three short years earlier, Bernstein had written in Foreign Affairs that, “One percent growth isn’t a recession, which is typically defined as two consecutive quarters of declining growth.”  

Or recall Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who referred to “two quarters of negative economic growth” as the common longstanding definition of a recession.  In 2022, however, she nevertheless insisted that the U.S. economy curiously wasn’t in one that time.  Suddenly, the longstanding, tried-and-true metric for defining recessions was cast aside in favor of a gauzy “holistic” evaluation of such subjective factors as labor market movements, consumer spending or whatever else Biden White House officials could grasp for dear life.  

So when Joe Biden oversaw consecutive quarters of contraction, it suddenly no longer fit the definition of “recession,” but today 3% growth is some sort of mirage.  Got that?  

Adding to the sardonic amusement of it all, last week’s unexpectedly positive economic report had been preceded by months of doomsday predictions from the media and political left.  The Democratic National Committee claimed as recently as May that President Trump was “okay” with a recession while a CNN headline from April 28 announced that Trump had us on “the brink of a crisis.”   

Moreover, the recent positive economic news to report isn’t limited to unexpectedly high GDP growth.  

As just one example, wage growth is again outpacing consumer price inflation, meaning that Americans’ dollars again buy more with less.  That contrasts with the Biden years, when soaring inflation outpaced wage gains and punished American consumers.  Which mainstream media outlets have been trumpeting that good news?  

Obviously, no single economic statistic tells the complete story, and thoughtful analysis and caveats to positive news should be encouraged.  The glaring asymmetry in how economic news gets framed, however, reveals how media reporting often amounts to partisan advocacy masquerading as journalism.  

That constitutes a disservice to the American people, who must rely on honest reporting to make informed choices in our democratic republic, and it further undermines public trust in media.  We must demand better, and members of the media themselves must raise their standards.