Follow this link to the report in the Washington Post about the latest job numbers just released by the US Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.

I love the way the media can always find some way to emphasize the bad news among the good.

However, only 162,000 new jobs were created on non-farm payrolls, well below what economists were expecting. Most forecasters were expecting about 200,000 new jobs to be created last month, and the shortfall underlines the wobbly nature of this recovery.

Later the article goes on to say:

Forecasters expected a bump of 100,000 census hires in March. But only 48,000 were hired.

So 50,000 fewer census hires were made than expected.  This difference far more than accounts for the shortfall in hiring from what most forecasters were expecting.  In other words, there was much more private hiring and much less government hiring than expected.  Why did the author of the article choose to highlight the negative in the report?

Forecasters expected the rate to remain unchanged at 9.7 percent. On Thursday, the number of new jobless claims filed last week dipped slightly, down 6,000 to 439,000. It’s tough for this economy to start creating a meaningful number of new jobs until the weekly new jobless claims number gets down into the low 400s and stays there.

I guess 439,000 must not be in the low 400s.  What is the low 400s? Would 425 be the low 400s? If this rate of decline were to continue (and not accelerate) it would take only 3 months to reach the low 400s.

Feel free to read the article and see if you can find any more examples.  Do journalists feel that they have to find the negative in any situation so they can maintain their street cred? Would they feel like they were bowing to the man if they just slanted the article to the positive and merely mentioned, in passing,  some of the negatives in the numbers? They seem to focus on the negative and just mention, in passing, some of the possible positive interpretations.

Reporting on the same data, the Reuters article, US STOCKS-Futures rise on stronger March jobs data, said:

U.S. stock index futures rose slightly on Friday after the government said nonfarm payrolls increased by 162,000 in March, pointing to potential gains when stock trading resumes next week.

I guess the stock market was able to see the balance between the good and the bad in the statistics.