Tacit Admission Without a Formal Correction?

1/30/09 Update:

1) On 12/11/08, the NBER declared a recession began in December, 2007.

2) This declaration was very controversial.

3) In my opinion, this was a declaration driven more by political considerations than economic considerations. I don’t dispute that we are now in a recession. I dispute when it began.

4) Anyone who thinks this controversial declaration from the NBER vindicates the “journalistic sins” I describe below does not understand the first thing about journalistic standards (which no longer exist).

End of update.

Last March, SP&T committed the journalistic “sin” of embedding opinion inside “straight news” by describing:

“The recession of the national economy”

Today, SP&T seems to have backed off of that assertion and now describes a:

“weakened economy”

Is this a tacit admission that SP&T was out of line last March? If so, why not admit the mistake and publish the correction? As far as I can tell, SP&T has not yet done so.

The data suggest that it is currently objectively and quantitatively accurate to describe a “weakened economy”. The same data suggest that it is a virtual certainty that the economy was NOT in a recession at the time that SP&T declared, in a “straight news” entry, that it was.

Does SP&T intend to wait until the NBER declares the next recession before admitting their mistake? Will they even admit it then?

Again, the primary journalistic “sin” was the stealth embedding of opinion inside “straight news”. That alone warranted the printing of a correction. The data increasingly suggest that a correction may now be needed for having printed a blatant falsehood!

The longer SP&T delays, the greater will be the tarnish on (in my view) their already soiled reputation.

Oh, did I mention that SP&T banned me from their Reader Forum (apparently for the “thought crime” of daring to challenge their editor on this topic)?

Click the image and read my original commentary:

Remember, the cover-up is always worse than the crime!
The professional thing to do would be to admit the mistake.

"The recession of the national economy"?

“The recession of the national economy”?
Click image and read the assertion (from 3/12/08):

Click here and examine the facts.
Will SP&T EVER print a correction?

The “original sin” was the stealth embedding of opinion within “straight news”.

At this point, the data demonstrate with virtual certainty that the
economy was NOT in a recession at the time the article was published.

Therefore, it seems a virtual certainty that a correction is NOW
needed in order to correct, not just the stealth embedding of opinion inside
“straight news”, but the printing of a FACTUAL INACCURACY!

Recession? What Recession?

Click The Image And “Read all About it!”:

In Steamboat Springs, sales tax receipts for May 2008
were up 3.98% compared to May of 2007.

Sales tax receipts from restaurants were up 12.83%! Naturally, in the “special” world of so-called “journalism”, that did not warrant ANY MENTION outside of the sidebar.

Better still, the year-to-date receipts exceed the budget projections:

“the city had budgeted for a 4 percent increase in sales tax collections over 2007, Rolan said. The year-to-date increase stands at 4.66 percent after May”

Predictably, the overall tone of this “report” is very negative.

I say, if this is what a recession looks like, give me more!

Click here to learn more.