Good News, Bad News, Same News

January 5, 2013
Posted by Jay Livingston

The headlines in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have the same fact – the first Friday jobs report and the unemployment rate.  They both mention “worry.” 






The WSJ headline frames the story as bad news. We should be worried about worry.  The Times is more “don’t worry, be happy.”  The WSJ’s subhead “unemployment rate hits 7.8%” makes it sound as though the rate is going up.  The Times (second graf, not shown here) notes that this rate was “steady.” 

After the headlines and ledes, the two stories are similarly pessimistic. 

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