Economy Roars, WaPo Yawns
Fact: The Commerce Department reports that 4th Quarter GDP grew at a 3.8% annualized rate, revised upward from 3.1%. Anyone with a functioning brain would headline this along the lines of “Economy Stronger Than Expected in 4th Quarter.”
Washington Post (WaPo) web headline (requires registration): Economic Growth Estimated at 3.8%
WaPo to reader: Please yawn and move on. (It wouldn’t kill you to acknowledge that this is a good thing, would it, WaPo?)
But the 4th quarter isn’t even the real news, it’s the 2004 full-year result, which you won’t find until the eighth paragraph of the WaPo story:
For all of 2004, the economy expanded by 4.4 percent, the best showing in five years.
How good is 4.4%? Not only is it the best in 5 years, it’s the third-best year in the last 20.
Now you know something most WaPo readers probably don’t: The economy is rippin’ right along.
