ABC covers for the Dems yet again

ABC "News" has been in the tank for the Democratic party for decades. Still, the brief piece I heard on their top-of-the-hour radio broadcast at ten a.m. yesterday was so amazingly slanted that I was speechless.

The newsreader said that according to just-released figures, the number of new unemployment claims was "down sharply" compared to the previous week. They threw in a couple more sentences of blather, and that was it.

I was struck by the fact that the piece didn't include a single actual number.

I mean, if you're doing a piece all about "just-released figures", wouldn't you think the actual figure would have some tiny relevance?

It turns out, of course, that "down sharply" is by comparison to a huge number from the prior week. Here's what the government's press release said:

In the week ending Aug. 21, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 473,000, a decrease of 31,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 504,000.

The 4-week moving average was 486,750, an increase of 3,250 from the previous week's revised average of 483,500.

Of course ABC doesn't want you to hear the actual numbers--probably because you're not sophisticated enough to understand 'em so you'd get scared and wouldn't buy as many CD's next week.

ABC "News"--"We report, we decide."