Poll Shows Media Making Economy Worse

It has been five days since Opinion Research Corporation released polling results that showed that “77 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. media is making the economic situation worse by projecting fear into people's minds,” and hardly anyone in the mainstream press has reported it. These results line up perfectly with what Business & Media Institute Vice President Dan Gainor has been saying for the past four years:



“As the U.S. economy slowed, some of the top names in TV business coverage – CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo and Fox’s Neil Cavuto – warned that journalists were “talking us into a recession.” Now that we are in a recession, it is apparent that more than three out of four Americans understand how negative news undermines consumer attitudes about the economy.



“Network journalists have warned of an impending recession since 2004. The Business & Media Institute showed in 2008 that they shifted that theme and focused on comparing economic news to the Great Depression – even though current unemployment has gone up 2 percent and is still about one fourth where it was in the Great Depression. Journalists need to take responsibility for this irresponsible reporting,” Gainor said in a recent press release.