"Disappointing" vs. "dramatic" holiday sales

Nathan Burchfiel of The Business & Media Institute writes that some reporters covering the holiday retail sales seem to be using the words “dramatic” and “disappointing” too loosely.

Burchfiel wrote, “According to MasterCard SpendingPulse, retail sales were up 3.6 percent during the holiday season – 2.4 percent excluding gas prices. But because it’s not as big an increase as recent years have produced, the media reported it as bad news.

“On NBC ‘Nightly News,’ reporter Savannah Guthrie announced a ‘dramatic’ 2.4 percent decrease in women’s clothing sales. A decrease was ‘dramatic,’ but the same percentage increase was apparently nothing to be happy about. Guthrie called it ‘disappointing.’ Â

“During ‘The Early Show’ on CBS the morning of December 26, anchor Maggie Rodriguez delivered a slip up that could contribute to negative perceptions of the shopping season. She said gift cards, a popular item this year, are ‘not redeemed very often.’ However, CBS’s Seth Doane had just reported that only one in five gift cards are not redeemed, amounting to about $5 billion revenues for retailers.”

Read more here.