Needs reported

Sorry, that should be ‘needs reporting’, but with the BBC’s reporting recently I seem to be experiencing tense confusion. The BBC report, most strangely, ‘US economy kept growing, Fed says’ in this report, and in the headline leading to it.

Now, this is weird, because journalistic practise is generally to use the present continuous when some event is up to the present: US economy ‘keeps growing’, or maybe present simple ‘growth continues’. They could use present perfect or present perfect continuous, ‘has grown’, ‘has been growing’, but the past continuous is a definite no-no. Yet they use it, twice. Why?

Well, when you read the account it’s hedged about with qualifications and scepticism- they have sought out, quite unusually it seems to me, numerous banks’ reports to scale down the positive data. In fact, as Bloomberg reports, in what amounts to a complete inversion of the BBC report (positive data up front),

‘The world’s biggest economy probably expanded at a 4.9 percent pace in the first quarter, the fastest since the third quarter of 2003’

Well, why the BBC negativity? The US economy has performed well in difficult times, during time of war and terrorism, and is now, currently, as far as we can see, performing better.

Maybe the answer is in ideology. Take this hysterical (not to say silly) report from Matt Frei. Anyone who states his opinions so extremely must be forcing the editors who sanction him into a corner. That’s not to discount the fact that they probably agree with him, operating within the same bubble.

Here’s how Frei introduces his article:

‘Petrol is the new indispensable staple and the $3 gallon is to America what the over-priced potato once was to Ireland.

Americans are very sensitive to the cost of filling up
It is causing a torrent of suffering and heartache.

Bewailed in country songs and popular ballads, it is forcing ordinary people to do extraordinary things – like car pooling, riding the bike to work, selling their second SUV, or doing a “walk-thru” at their local burger joint instead of a “drive-thru”.’

Now check out what a very clever and attuned American, Glenn Reynolds, has to say, quoting from Forbes’ Nick Schultz:

‘the Associated Press reports that “surveys indicate drivers won’t be easing off on their mileage, using even more gas than a year ago.” Now why is that? If prices are rising, one would expect consumers would use less.

The answer might be in some of the long-term trends that the short-term media lens is too cramped to see. Energy prices may be rising, but energy itself is much less important to consumers and to the overall economy than it once was.’

It surely tallies better with the positive economic data, and with the fact that petrol prices have risen from a high base in recent times.

But the problem is that Frei has set out to put the boot in to the President, and he distorts his case to do so. See the way he drags in the tangentally related issue of Iraq and makes a horribly emotionalised point:

Back to the old old story again. With such extreme, and, one has to say, culpable subjectivity, it’s not surprising the news follows suit, now, is it?