The AP is reporting on the jobless rate decline thus: "Jobless Rate Drops; 115,000 Jobs Added. (
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=668&e=4&u=/ap/20040206/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi
/economy), and then in the interior of the story state that the number of new jobs is dissappointing. And jobless rate itself is never defined. (I'm not sure I understand it myself.) Here's a letter I wrote to the AP about this.
Please consider doing the same at info@ap.org
.
I find headline for Leigh Strope's piece, "Jobless Rate Drops; 112,000 Jobs Added" close to irresponsible for its failure to capture a key point in the story: economists are disappointed! 112,000 jobs isn't nearly enough. The headline should have read: "Jobless rate drops; only 112K Jobs Added."
Also, the interior of the story fails: 1) only administration officials are quoted, no Democrats, 2) "Jobless rate" is never defined! It is a rate of new hires (then why is it called "Jobless," a rate of new filings for unemployment, or the rate at which people are falling off the employment benefits rolls due to expiration of benefits? Regardless, all three statistics should be given in an article like this. Americans deserve to know if more or fewer Americans total are working this month compared to last. (Also, many Americans, like me, get confused as to what the different indicators really measure. It's all far murkier than it needs to be. So as a journalist, Strope (the AP as a whole) should help educate, too.)
I suspect that the new jobs number doesn't match negative indicators, such as number of people who've been out of work so long that they've lost benefits.
Sincerely,
Scott Isebrand
New York, NY