The Media

There are a million different reasons to rant about the media.  Today it will be about the way that they twist headlines.  Looking at MSNBC's front page there is a bar on the left with headlines under "Economy in turmoil." Below that are the following headlines:

Harder times mean softer paychecks
White House to banks: Stop hoarding money
Home prices fall by sharpest annual rate ever
Consumer confidence at lowest ever
Wall Street rallies despite bleak news

It's the last headline that bothers me, because on a daily basis the Dow is up or down 2% as many things in the world are being factored in.  To suggest that Wall Street is rallying because there happens to be a modest upswing today that coincides with this other negative news is silly.  Wall Street is down 20+% from where it was.  Slight ups and downs do not change the fact that we're no where near a rally, we're just wobbling on an uncertain base and will continue to wobble until all the current factors in our new reality settle.  The news is no less bleak because Wall Street is up 2%, and Wall Street isn't excited about the bad news, and it doesn't suggest that Wall Street expected the news to be worse.  It's more reasonable to report these as unrelated event but that's not like the media, so why have high expectations.