Lousy story underscores weak economic, fiscal reporting

The Associated Press chose to focus Friday on the size of the federal deficit in its report on the Congressional Budget Office’s latest forecast. That story, frankly, reeked. [Thx to lullabypit. I commented on his post earlier and decided to pull it up here.]

The AP’s deficit story missed the important role of economic growth because it chose to focus on one stark number of such magnitude that it must portend doom. Clearer editorial thinking (and abandonment of the Rolodex reporting style) could have produced a more useful story.

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