Would this qualify as 'fake news'?

[Timsup2nothin]

The latest released job numbers are blasting through the right wing echo chamber like gangbusters. They are portrayed more or less the same everywhere I looked, but a good example comes from Breitbart, where they run under the headline BOOM: Economy Adds 228,000 Jobs. The number is more or less official. It is the Bureau of Labor Statistics preliminary figure for November. Final numbers won't be out for a couple months, but no one wants to nitpick about that.

What is worth noting, and conspicuously absent from the right wing echo chamber coverage, is that if you go to the source you will find that this 228,000 number ranks fourth among the last five Novembers. If you check the "1.7 million so far" (Feb-Nov) being touted on the 'Trump Scoreboard' you will find that it is the weakest for the Feb-Nov period since at least 2013, where I got tired of doing the math.

So we have a FACT: 228,000 jobs added, that is being presented as evidence of a completely false claim.

Should there be anything done about this? If so, what?

 

[Cutlass]

What can you do? Lying liars have the right to be lying liars. You can try to tell the truth, but you'll be shouted down as fake news.

Make the Fairness Doctrine law again.

 

[GenMarshall]

I'd call it fake news, or more appropriately, YMMY News. Largely cause I see no evidence of new jobs being created in my area. Rather the state I'm living in is hemoraging jobs.

 

[Gori the Grey]

No, this is not fake news. It's just standard spin. This number is great when our guy gets it, horrible when the other guy does.

Remember Spicer: the employment numbers were fake when Trump was a candidate, but they're real now.

By the way, by the end of Trump's term, instead of reporting unemployment as 90 million out of work (by counting retirees and schoolchildren), Trump will suddenly start using the statistic everyone else has used all along--and he'll take credit for the improvement as being a result of his economic policies.

 

[Zkribbler]

Make the Fairness Doctrine law again.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

There was an article in I believe the NYT that also pointed out that since the welfare reforms of the 90's, more and more states are shifting people off of welfare programs and onto disability. Why this is germane to this discussion:
People on disability that are not working are no longer counted in the employment numbers while most on welfare are. This trend has grown across administrations because it's cheaper for the states to shift people onto disability payments (paid for by the feds) than to keep them on welfare (paid partially by the states).

Going back at least until Clinton, there has been a concerted effort at the state level to shift people to the disability program which has skewed the employment numbers that everyone references.

 

[Ajidica]

The latest released job numbers are blasting through the right wing echo chamber like gangbusters. They are portrayed more or less the same everywhere I looked, but a good example comes from Breitbart, where they run under the headline BOOM: Economy Adds 228,000 Jobs. The number is more or less official. It is the Bureau of Labor Statistics preliminary figure for November. Final numbers won't be out for a couple months, but no one wants to nitpick about that.

What is worth noting, and conspicuously absent from the right wing echo chamber coverage, is that if you go to the source you will find that this 228,000 number ranks fourth among the last five Novembers. If you check the "1.7 million so far" (Feb-Nov) being touted on the 'Trump Scoreboard' you will find that it is the weakest for the Feb-Nov period since at least 2013, where I got tired of doing the math.

So we have a FACT: 228,000 jobs added, that is being presented as evidence of a completely false claim.

Should there be anything done about this? If so, what?

Nah, this isn't "fake news"; it is just Politician's Truth and has been around since Great Chief Ug told his fellow cavemen that they should be happy only five of them were ate by sabertooth lions because it could have been six of them.

I'd call it fake news, or more appropriately, YMMY News. Largely cause I see no evidence of new jobs being created in my area. Rather the state I'm living in is hemoraging jobs.

You are aware the GOP plan is to slash regional development funding (like the Appalachian Regional Commission) and instead tell people to move to areas with job opportunities because "the government shouldn't be funding your laziness".

Going back at least until Clinton, there has been a concerted effort at the state level to shift people to the disability program which has skewed the employment numbers that everyone references.

The whole Clinton welfare reform was a disaster that was papered over by a booming 90s economy and good marketing. Seriously, who had the bright idea to impose lifetime welfare caps?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yes it was a disaster and the problems with it were made obvious during the Great Recession. There is no appetite to fix it, however, because as a society we have this belief that if you don't work you are a lazy POS.

The article I read pointed out how frequently those who obtain disability look down on those on welfare - even though the doctors being interviewed were explicit in admitting that they gave disability assignments as a way to keep money flowing into the community that would dry up under actual welfare.

Plus, the welfare program as it currently exists is completely abused by many states. On the NPR series Marketplace, Kai Rizdal showed how often welfare money is funneled by states into anti-abortion clinics and abstinence-only sex ed programs. It was even being used to host these weird abstinence parties for college students in Kansas. The theory was that money spent on trying to encourage two-family households would help the economy because family units are better able to withstand shifting economic circumstances.

That's a fair goal but the way it's been implemented is asinine and throws money at useless pet projects for the religious right while denying it to those that need it.

It's worth noting that it's a big step up from the way welfare programs were run from the 60's until the 80's though. Back then if you were African American it was borderline impossible to get help in most areas because of explicit, overt racism written into the welfare statutes. My grandmother used to tell stories of how her patients in the dialysis unit would have to deal with inspectors that would show up to assess the fitness of their home. If they had a TV in the house, welfare was revoked. If the assessor ran their white-gloved hand over the banister and picked up dust, welfare was revoked, etc.

 

[Lexicus]

You are aware the GOP plan is to slash regional development funding (like the Appalachian Regional Commission) and instead tell people to move to areas with job opportunities because "the government shouldn't be funding your laziness".

Of course, this basically describes the Democrats' attitude to much of the country as well.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Melania for president 2024!

 

[FriendlyFire]

Its been post truth since 2017

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Its been post truth since 2017

"Post truth era" IS fake news.

 

[Broken_Erika]

"Post truth era" IS fake news.

Nuh-Uh! It's called "Alternative Facts" and/or "Truthiness"

 

[Ryika]

Fact: There is no such thing as a "fact" that we can know, it's all subjective.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Fact: There is no such thing as a "fact" that we can know, it's all subjective.

There are 228,000 more jobs in the US economy at the end of November than there were at the start, as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is a fact. Numbers generally are facts, and numbers don't lie. People can and do lie about numbers.

 

[Ryika]

Nonono. I was just meming in response to Broken_Erika, not questioning the numbers in the OP.

Although, on a general note, while numbers don't lie, numbers don't always show what we think they show. For example, a part of the reason for why crime statistics for black Americans are so much worse than they are for white Americans, could simply be that they're simply overreported. So even if the numbers have been collected faithfully, they might still not show the reality of the crime statistics that they're meant to show. Of course this has nothing to do with the topic at all!

So to say something on topic:

I think this is the kind of fake news that you usually see on certain left-wing publications that shall not be named. Instead of blatantly lying like it is usually the case on the right, important context is being left out to create a picture that is practically a distortion of reality. That's obviously "fake news" and should be called out as such, but at the same time also just typical politician bs.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Nonono. I was just meming in response to Broken_Erika, not questioning the numbers in the OP.

Although, on a general note, while numbers don't lie, numbers don't always show what we think they show. For example, a part of the reason for why crime statistics for black Americans are so much worse than they are for white Americans, could simply be that they're simply overreported. So even if the numbers have been collected faithfully, they might still not show the reality of the crime statistics that they're meant to show. Of course this has nothing to do with the topic at all!

So to say something on topic:

I think this is the kind of fake news that you usually see on certain left-wing publications that shall not be named. Instead of blatantly lying like it is usually the case on the right, important context is being left out to create a picture that is practically a distortion of reality. That's obviously "fake news" and should be called out as such, but at the same time also just typical politician bs.

It may well be "typical politician BS." But the job of the journalist is to cut through the BS. This particular issue I would expect D'ump to be boasting about the 228,000 jobs added. But I would expect a journalist to provide the context that it took me half a paragraph to provide after five minutes of research. I wouldn't necessarily expect such journalism from "certain left wing publications," and my intent was to use this incredibly obvious example to crack some shells among the right wing faithful that draw their 'information' from their echo chamber.

 

[ls612]

Fake News is when people just make stuff up (like the viral story before the election saying an FBI agent involved with the Clinton investigation had been found mysteriously dead when they were, in fact, alive and well). Reporting that 228k jobs were created in November is not made up, so I don't think it qualifies as fake news. It is spin and editorialization, but it is definitely real news.

Also, fun fact, the unemployment rate for the twin cities just fell below 2.5% and people are now complaining that too many companies want to set up here and are pushing up housing prices because of their demand for high paid workers. What a problem to have I guess...

https://www.bls.gov/web/metro/laulrgma.htm

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Fake News is when people just make stuff up (like the viral story before the election saying an FBI agent involved with the Clinton investigation had been found mysteriously dead when they were, in fact, alive and well). Reporting that 228k jobs were created in November is not made up, so I don't think it qualifies as fake news. It is spin and editorialization, but it is definitely real news.

Also, fun fact, the unemployment rate for the twin cities just fell below 2.5% and people are now complaining that too many companies want to set up here and are pushing up housing prices because of their demand for high paid workers. What a problem to have I guess...

https://www.bls.gov/web/metro/laulrgma.htm

There used to be this thing called "the editorial page." Spin and editorialization belonged there. If it leaked out of there and turned into a headline calling below average performance, even if that performance is reported accurately, a "BOOM," then it would have gotten a newspaper restaffed, from the top down.

 

[ls612]

There used to be this thing called "the editorial page." Spin and editorialization belonged there. If it leaked out of there and turned into a headline calling below average performance, even if that performance is reported accurately, a "BOOM," then it would have gotten a newspaper restaffed, from the top down.

That would imply that Breitbart is a reputable source, which it isn't. I agree with you but it is real news, and it is a free country and they can say whatever they want.