Trump and the Employment Report, fact and fiction, Pt. 1
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its Employment Situation Report for February on March 10, showing a healthy 235,000 gain in payroll employment. Asked what President Trump thought about the numbers, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said, “I talked to the president prior to this, and he said to quote him very clearly,” Spicer said. “They may have been phony in the past, but it’s very real now.”
Many of the reporters present laughed. I cringed.
Over the years on public television’s Nightly Business Report, I filed countless “numbers” pieces. The monthly employment reports were most closely watched. For better or worse these reports often had an immediate financial market moving impact, making them lead stories for a market driven broadcast.
I cringed because I believe attempts to undermine the credibility of these reports do a great disservice.
Continues at businessjournalism.org….
Scott Gurvey 