During my introduction to economics course today, my professor brought up a simple point about the news media: Why don't they cover all most important parts of economics as it pertains to unemployment numbers?
Simply put, why does the news media make such a fuss about numbers that don't tell the whole truth.
As it turns out, the unemployment rate that some of the news media uses to show how a party is benefiting or screwing up the economy — depending on which side of the fence you're on — is not as good a representation of the state of our economy as, say, the number of people who are unemployed, plus the number of people who don't think there is a job out there for them, plus the number of part-time employees (simplified here into a neat chart. Section U-6 is the best according to my professor, James Tierney).
But within the preceding paragraph lies the problem: People will take one look the description of U-6 and say, "That's too much for me to understand."
For the news media, and for the sake of this blog post, newspapers specifically, it is actually economically ironic to break down the better economic indicators out there. Here's a couple of reasons why.
1) The cost of specialization is too high for newspapers.
To have a strong economy, specialization is key. The same is true for the newspaper business.
In an ideal world, each newspaper would have a fleet of government, features, business, sports, education, transportation, health, cops and courts, and a wealth of other types of beat writers who can take the time to thoroughly cover each issue.
The fact of the matter is, even papers like The New York Times have cut their staffs so thin that specialization now means focusing on multiple beats.
On the hyper-local level, a paper like the Press-Republican here in Plattsburgh can in no way afford to dedicate a writer to one issue. Yes, there is a business writer (key word a), but he also covers town government, cops and courts, and features when need be. That means its hard enough to get a monthly story done about the unemployment numbers from the previous month on a local level, let alone begin to dig deeper into the charts and statistics.
Even though many papers use Associated Press or similar syndicated content, if those papers produce content containing numbers that go beyond the surface, papers have space issues (space if a valuable resource that has become more and more limited. I know you economists who read this like the word resource), which means devoting space to even a typical unemployment story means sacrificing other, perhaps more pertinent news.
2) The cost of specialization is too high for writers.
As a last-semester senior, I realize the stupidity of trying to specialize in only one area of the newspaper business given the economic state of newspapers.
For those seeking jobs, it doesn't make sense to specialize as a page designer or writer or videograhper or photographer, let alone a sports copy editor or business writer or features videograhper.
To land a job, aspiring journalists need to know how to work in every part of the newsroom so they can not only apply for any job but also get the jobs that require them to wear different hats.
In a way, specialization in journalism promotes the opposite of what economic specialization should. If anything, learning how to do everything is specializing.
To tie this back in with economics writing, for students to take the time to learn economics so they can become business writers who are trained to digest the numbers that go beyond the cursory unemployment stats doesn't make sense. Knowing how to be only a business writer won't get you a job when there are only five business openings in the country and 300 other people are vying for the job. A 22-year-old with a bachelor's in economics and journalism is more likely to get passed over for a 40-year-old with 15 years of newspaper experience than to get a phone call for an interview.
Students can specialize by taking intro courses in economics, business, statistics, sports reporting, features writing, design, editing, etc., not by spending extra time in school for a degree that in all likelihood won't give them an edge.
3) Specialization is a poor business model
I haven't worked in newspapers that long, but I've been in the business long enough to tell you that reader apathy is high.
And what readers do care about, they aren't willing to work for in most cases.
A perfect example is the business page on any given day. A reader may care about what's going on in the local community and in the state, but throw a business header in the folio and readers skip the page.
Why? Because the word business for many people signifies the stories and graphics will be too hard to understand.
A relative minority gets upset when the Daily Dow Jones graphic doesn't appear in the paper on a given day, but the majority can't make heads or tales of the graphs and statistics.
Now, before you go chastising me for lumping the stock market in with the field of economics, you have to realize that anything having to do with economics is, in most cases, relegated to the business page. That means readers may see the headline about unemployment, but the simple fact there is a graphic filled with confusing numbers and graphs next to it is enough to turn some off.
For others, statistics within the actual story will be a turn off. The average reader has no idea how a 1.2 percent jump or drop of the unemployment rate affects them and the economy as a whole.
Newspapers could try to take the time to explain those statistics more in detail, but then they're bordering needing to write a column to do so. And as I explained before, newspapers can't afford to let a beat writer specialize in writing an economics column when it will take him or her away from specializing in the news of the day.
Long story short, newspapers should cover economics more in depth to better serve their readers. But there are a slew of economic ironies that force editors and publishers to sacrifice understanding for economic stories that can only skim the surface — if the economy can make it in the paper at all.
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