This visual actually aired, without a hint of irony or shame, on Fox News today, as if it presented accurate, legitimate information to its audience. Media Matters' Zachary Pleat called it "dishonest," but really, that's being overly generous. I'm more inclined to say Fox News is deliberately deceiving its viewers, assuming they won't know the difference.
via Media Matters
There are two main elements to this. The first is the notion that the "real" unemployment rate nearly doubled on President Obama's watch. To arrive at this figure, Fox News began with the standard U-3 unemployment rate from January 2009, and then compared it to August 2012 U-6 unemployment rate, which includes part-time workers who want to work full-time and those who've given up.
The only reason to equate a U-3 rate and a U-6 rate at the same time -- a classic apples to oranges comparison -- is to wildly mislead people. It's about as honest as saying a team that scored two touchdowns loses to a team that scored three field goals, because three is greater than two, and when you weren't looking, we decided to count by how many times each team scores.
The truth, for anyone who's interested, isn't hard to find. In February 2009, Obama's first full month in office, the U.S. economy lost 726,000 jobs and the standard unemployment rate was 8.2%. In August 2012, the U.S. economy added about 100,000 jobs and unemployment fell to 8.1%. Republicans can argue that's not good enough, and they can argue they would have done better, but if they don't want to be laughed at, they shouldn't try silly stunts like Fox News'.
The second is the jobless rate among "government workers" -- Fox wants its viewers to think hard-working folks in the private sector are struggling, while those public-sector workers have it easy. Reality, however, gets in the way of the narrative -- since the economy bottomed out, America's private sector has added 4.6 million jobs, while the nation's public sector has shed 571,000 jobs. Since the start of the recession, we've lost more jobs in government than any other sector of the economy. The public sector hasn't had it better than everyone else; the public sector has had it worse than everyone else
After the graphic aired, Fox News contributor Laura Ingraham asked, "Other than Fox News, where are you really seeing those statistics?" What a good question.
Update: "Fox & Friends" will reportedly air a correction tomorrow.
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This Blog Author and Media Matters. The twin gospels of truth. Right.
Simply pathetic.
I would be careful using the word "gospel" if I were you. With climate change upon us, the incidence of lightning storms is way up. Stay indoors...
Are the Fox numbers accurate? Are the comparisons honest?
Obama's first full month in office, the U.S. economy lost 726,000 jobs and the standard unemployment rate was 8.2%. In August 2012, the U.S. economy added about 100,000 jobs and unemployment fell to 8.1%.
Here's some more truth for IrishPat.
Nine or ten months after President Obama took office, unemployment peaked at 10. 2 percent. Now if IrishPat wants to blame Obama for jobs lost between the day he was inaugurated and the days that his policies took hold, then he's free to do so. But Mitt Romney defended his jobs record in Massachusetts by saying that you can't blame the chief executive for job losses that occurred before his policies had a chance to take effect and reverberate. If you apply Romney's own logic, then Obama has reduced the unemployment rate by over two percent.
IrishPat, you're embarrassing your fellow Irishmen.
As an Irishman, I'd like to confirm that embarrassment..
The Un-fair and Un-balanced schill for Faux News strikes again. I do wonder what will happen to you IF Mendatious Mitt and Lyin' Ryan win. If you have a job, Mitten's will outsource it and park your IRA account in the Cayman's to avoid any taxes. Oh, by the way, make sure you don't get sick because any safety net will be gone like a fart in the wind.
Irish is either actually retarded, or he's a really old guy with dementia. There's no need to respond to anything he says. Just mark it "No Value" and move on.
What is simply pathetic is Faux News continuing to use the book "How to Lie With Statistics" as their guide to accuracy. While the number presented may be data, they are NOT information. Information is data presented in context so as to have meaning. The ARE comparing apples to oranges, and they know it. The concept of "government unemployment" is just ludicrous. It is a fact that the number of government employees has gone down since 2009. It is also a fact that the economy was losing hundreds of thousands of jobs a month when the president took over and has gained jobs every month for 30 months.
You may be able to claim that jobs haven't grown as much as they need to under this President, although a good portion of that is due to republican recalcitrance in Congress, but to imply that somehow the President increased unemployment is a total falsehood and they know it.
So wait a minute you mock MSNBC and Media Matters as being untruthful....
....but then can't point to them lying????
Either what they are claiming is true or it is not true. Which one is it?
You can make the unreliable source claim with Media Matters- they do state openly that they are a progressive institution whose aim is to push back on what they see as conservative lies. However they do not take money from and are not ran by specific individuals known to have an active bias for progressive policies. They also correct any statements that are proven to be false or misleading. They redact articles if they point out inaccuracies and they usually don't present information in a way that's wildly unbalanced (I say usually here since I have seen some examples in which they have). A source being labeled reliable or unreliable must violate more than just having progressive ties or conservative ties (although a known bias SHOULD always makes you hesitant before believing the source as true). If what they say is wrong then correct it. Otherwise you are using an ad hominem here to bring into question the credibility of the source without proving that the source is wrong. And that makes you the fool, not Media Matters.
I wonder if FixNews can give me the Unemployment rate of employed people?
Gee IrishPat7, even in the face of facts and reality, you are convinced there's a conspiracy. It's never true, for you, unless it feeds your base, guttural instincts. You and your ilk are pathetic.
I think we're overlooking the obvious. Zealots and "true believers" are naturally wary of facts, logic, and supportive evidence, because they often don't coincide with their ideologies and theologies. When this happens, as it often does, the ideologue tells him/herself that his/her holy truths and beliefs are far more important then documented facts, and lies for the greater good, as the zealot/true believer sees it. Doesn't this explain a lot of what we're seeing?
Government "workers" are by definition employed. Furthermore, there is no job outside of some public safety and national security ones that do not have a private sector equivalent.
Are you serious? There is NO private equivalent for the Park Service, and where do you think "The Weather Channel" gets their information. Or how about the Library of Congress that holds an invaluable amount of information, or how about the Passport Office, etc.!
I don't know when people started forgetting that simply because "the private sector" can do something, it doesn't mean that it is in the best interest of WE the PEOPLE! I'm not knocking the "private sector" - but the truth is they operate based on what will bring them the most PROFIT, period; there is NO altruism involved, it also means that everyone will have to pay whatever the going rate is for whatever service WE now have provided thru our tax dollars. It's a shame that Americans have been so seduced by the "private sector" that they can't even understand that sometimes it is in the best interest of "the commons" that certain things get provided by the federal/state/local governments.
Areas that should never be "for profit" industries:
a) Regulatory bodies
b) Prisons
c) Utilities
d) Police/fire/military
e) Public education
f) Border control
g) Health care/insurance
I'm sure I could think of more... but these are all areas that do not benefit the publc by being handled by for profit businesses.
Scroll down to Paragraph C2 of the following to see what constitute "inherently Governmental functions." http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2010-03-31/html/2010-7329.htm
"there is no job outside of some public safety and national security ones that do not have a private sector equivalent...."
you forgot the end of your statement. Here, let me complete it for you:
there is no job outside of some public safety and national security ones that do not have a private sector equivalent.... that costs 3 times more.
Zora: Could not have said it better.
Racquel: Consider adding Banks to your list. Great list.
I think we're overlooking the obvious. "True Believers" are wary of facts, logic, and supportive evidence, because facts often don't support the cherished beliefs they hold by faith (blind and uncritical acceptance). When reality contradicts their ideological tenets, they lie without compunction, having faith that their ideology trumps reality, and that they're lying for the greater good.
Explains a lot, doesn't it?
Zora Renee, I beg to differ, Landscapers, working on private projects are equivalent to Park Service Employees. But, private security is the equivalent of Police and Fire services though they generally call on Government employees for backup and follow through.
A job is a job.
Karl
As someone who works at a place with extensive botanical gardens landscapers are not the same as park service employees. Landscapers do not have to deal with bears and other wildlife. Even the coyotes where I work are not dealt with by the botanical staff which includes landscapers.
Also landscapers do not live 24/7 where they do landscaping. They are simply not equivalent.
There is no government work unemployment rate. That is a made up number. Once you are out of work from government work, you are just unemployed. An ex-government worker becomes part of the regular unemployment rate. Not too many people are only looking for government jobs and are not willing to be hired in the private sector. Fox sells its sole just to try and get a republican elected.
An unemployment rate among government workers? What the hell does that even mean?
It isn't rocket science here, in the context of the sentence it was used, it means people who were employed in some branch of the government but were laid off due to budget cuts.
Hope that cleared it up for you.
@ Sandra: That's not a real thing. The name makes no sense. If you want to talk about layoff rates, then talk about layoff rates. Unemployment means something different.
Sean
Unemployment is unemployment. Please try not to muddy the waters.
Oh. My. God. Fox News. Lying. Again.
The howwow... the howwow...
Fox NEWS?...never tell the truth...talk about bias in the news...this is not only bias...it is not even news...
some people just prefer fiction....
OMG Faux Noise, Lying STILL.
Dishonesty... from Fox? Wow, I'm shocked... really. *rolls eyes*
If one were to apply the same "underemployed/stopped looking" calculus to their "2009" figure that they used to over-inflate their 2012 figure, I suspect the numbers would be more favorable to the President.
Did you think the people at Fox are even AWARE how blatantly dishonest a comparison they are making?
I'm sure there are people at Fox Propaganda who are aware of that (though some of the on-air "talent" seem too painfully stupid to "get" it). The problem is that too many of the people who watch Fox Propaganda are NOT aware of the dishonesty...
Vulture/Voucher 2012
Proving Two Rights DO Make a Wrong!
;-)
Perhaps the biggest irony is that the apples-to-apples comparison for underemployment is a genuine strike against Obama: 14.2 in January 2009 vs. 14.7 in August 2012 (just as an unemployment comparison for the same two periods shows a small increase under Obama's "watch"). FoxNews could have shocked their readers, they could have done it with a carefully cherry-picked truth rather than out-and-out lying (for that matter: from the time that Obama emerged as the Democrat front-runner to the worst part of the economic crash, underemployment nearly doubled: From 9.7 in May 2008 to 17.0 in April 2010... obviously, as the Fox News mantra would go, even the suggestion of an Obama presidency was enough to destroy the economy).
After 4 years of frantically trying to find anything they can to hold against the president, all they can find is questionable, at best, information that is almost always found to be, well, questionable.
If they had the truth, they'd use it.
What do you expect? After all, more than half of Republicans think that Mitt Romney might have been responsible for killing Osama Bin Laden and that Obama had nothing to do with it.
With Republicans, it isn't a question of whether or not they live in fantasyland. It's just where within that domain they reside.
Wasn't a recent cry from the republican side, that it was women in government jobs that have suffered the most... (a bleak attempt at turning women against the President.) They are simply grasping at any straw. How are people so brainwashed?
"How are people so brainwashed?"
Never underestimate the influence of sado-masochism in political identification.
They're great at lying! I balk at being part of a society whose members don't bother to question this blatant propaganda.. Irish Pat and his fondness for the church of pedophiles is another example. Thanks for highlighting it again Mr. Benen.
(sarcasm alert!)
But...but...but they are Ideologically Sound pedophiles!!!
Not at all different from your clinging to every word gutter uttered on MSNBC and from the likes of Ms Fabrication Nation herself Maddow and this lying blog author.
There i a great divide between the priests who commited offenses against God, the Church, society, their communities and their victims and the Catholic Church herself. Only a "trollop" brain would not know the difference. As for Mr Loser & Chief Entropy, just a fool lost in a mind filled with hate & lies and no where to turn.
But thanks for trying to make me a rock star here.......
Ever since Fox has joined hands with Romney the incidence of lieing has gone up more than 14.7%. Just think how many more people will feel that they have the right and are obligated to lie under a Romney admnistration. As far as religious freedoms, there are more than 2 religions in this World, we oughta heed the words of a wise man, President Kennedy, and keep Church and State separate. If someone is unhappy in their environment, say a blog, they shouldn't stay here, especially when they sound like they're gonna have a heart attack. Maybe they should go where they feel more wanted....a fox hole?
If there's such a separation, Irish, then why did the Church (including the Rat on the Throne) give orders to move the offending priests so that they could avoid punishment for being pedophiles? You're no rock star; the closest you get is having rocks for brains.
"Other than Fox News, where are you really seeing those statistics?"
Fortunately, respectable news outlets won't be sharing these Faux statistics. And, also fortunately, anyone who is watching Faux News is already going to be voting for Romney and all the other Rs down ticket.
Bookmark Steve's explanation so you will have it for the crazy uncle, or brother, who will be "informing" you of this creative data.
Would you go for stupid or evil
Time to revisit this one . The boys start at 5:50 of the video if you are in a rush
Best John Oliver Wyatt Cenack piece ever
http:// www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-august-23-2010/the-parent-company-trap
Ah, yes. Fox News, Oceania's number one network.
"Teh Faithful" here understand your comment, but an explanation for the Foxy Set is needed. After all, it is not an Ayn Rand reference. . .
DAY- It's an allusion to Orwell's 1984, where Fox would be the official Ministry of Truth.
5.1% of government workers are unemployed? Whaa?......
What's next? A report on the number of teenage girls who are almost pregnant?
I'm still trying to figure out how they came up with that "5.1%" figure.
5.1% of "government workers" are unemployed? If they are working, they're not unemployed.
Well, you know those lazy government "workers", right? Fox Propaganda thinks they do...
Vulture/Voucher 2012
Proving Two Rights DO Make a Wrong!
;-)
Fox also reported that 5.1% of deaf people can hear, 5.1% of blind people have 20/20 vision, and you can fool some of the people all of the time.
They know that it is possible, as James Thurber said, to "fool too many of the people too much of the time."
115% of Fox "statistics" are 100% pure Grade-A "beef-byproduct"!
Vulture/Voucher 2012
Proving Two Rights DO Make a Wrong!
;-)
More like the product of the northern end of a south-facing cow...
What network is better than Fox for disinformation and misinformation? None, they are unequaled and the best at what they do. However, I don't think they give any journalism awards for that kind of reporting.
It seems everyday they are sounding more and more like 7th graders who aren't getting their way.Sarah Palin is starting to look and sound older though, kind of crotchety and whiney, harder to withstand than scratching your nails down a chalkboard.
America's? Grammar check! You don't even need to read any further to know the content is questionable.
Actually, I think "America's" is correct.
Short for "America is not working".
O.K. I stand corrected. Thanks.
Shouldn't it be Americans not working as opposed to America's not working? Americans is the people and America is the place.
All of America wants to work and should be working. We should be living to work and not the other way around.
What a bunch of pikers F-News has working for them. They didn't count dead people or folks over 80 or kids under 12. This network should have it's broadcast license revoked for tampering with legitimate elections. Fortunately, only the brain dead who can't think for themselves don't question these kind of Faux News "facts".
But, the percentage of brain dead who don't question the "facts" within the total population appears to be a problem!
Writers a faux news shovel fantasy that puts J.K. Rowling to shame.
They don't call it faux news for nothing !
I'd like to see a media study on the usage of the phrase "real unemployment" before and after 1-20-2009.
I don't remember the phrase "real unemployment" being used as frequently as it has prior to January 20, 2009.
It's as if after that date the media decided to use a completely different standard for this president.
Or should we say... "legitimate" employment...?
Or how about , LIVING WAGE employment?
just checked - u-6 Jan 2012 14.2%
peaked at 17% in apr 2010
Actually the U6 number peaked in 2009 at 17.1% and started down hill in 2010. The 14.2% rate is a significant reduction. The sad thing is that Steve is engaging in the same kind of apples to oranges comparison as Fox News. The numbers 14.2 or 8.1 are both bad, but they are not nearly as bad as Fox would have us believe, nor as good as Steve seems to imply.
How can a government worker be unemployed? Doesn't the fact of unemployment ultimately mean they are no longer government workers?
http://portalseven.com/employment/unemployment_rate_u6.jsp
http://portalseven.com/employment/unemployment_rate.jsp
"Fact checkers... we don't need no stinking fact checkers!" - Romney campaign
Or "where do facts come from"?
How many folks in the US look to Faux for accuracy? Count them on one hand or two?
To all those supporters of FOX propaganda... they are admitting that their claims were erroneous and a correction is planned for tomorrow on "Fox and Friends."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/11/fox-news-correction-fox-friends-unemployment_n_1875080.html
I believe it is one more example of the rethugs campaign to put out the big lie, and then walk it back or take it back or " correct" it in smaller media or in the case of faux news, will " correct" it in not prime time audience. This has been consistent throughout robme/lyin ryan campaign. BIG lie, walk it back in a couple of days.
Yes , the correction will be posted on page 3 of their web sight at 4 am tomorrow morning
Please, someone explain to us why McConnell and his cabel of thugs are not being charged with sedition? The ones in that documented meeting, on the day of President Obama's inauguration, are guilty as sin in the legal term of sedition. Included in that group were lyin ryan, Cantor, Demint(ed) and gang. Mcconnell is documented on video declaring this resistence to President Obama's election
Sedition- incitement of resistence to or insurrection against lawful authority.
Treason-the attempt by overt acts to overthrow the government.
I want to see these thugs brought up on charges !
Don't go overboard, Linda. We want the opportunity to throw monkey wrenches into THEIR agenda some day.
Unfortunatelyat this point , I would not be surprised if people like him are considering a bullet as a legitimate solution to make that happen , these people are unhinged
Well, Mark Levin has already proven that "real" unemployment is nearly 50%...
http://liberalbias.com/post/652/mark-levin-proves-that-unemployment-is-really-50/
... depending on how you define "real"....