NYT reporter's "recession" call was wrong, says critic

Tom Blumer, a CPA who contributes to the NewsBusters web site, points out Wednesday that New York Times reporter David Leonhardt‘s “call” six months ago that manufacturing in this country was in a recession was flat out wrong.

Blumer, who posted parts of an e-mail he sent to David Cay Johnston of The Times, wrote, “Leaving aside the impropriety of characterizing only one sector of an economy as being in a recession (a macro term), manufacturing has not been in anything resembling dire straits for over four years. It barely went into contraction in November 2006 and January 2007 (second item at link); it has expanded in 48 of the past 50 months.

“Leonhardt himself has never retracted his ‘recession’ call. It remains in its own way one of the most bogus pieces of reporting I have seen in any section of the news.

“David, if calling a manufacturing ‘recession’ and then not retracting it after six consecutive months of reported expansion immediately after his call is not agenda-driven, I don’t know what is. It never had any foundation, and it should be an embarrassment to the Times each day it stays uncorrected.”

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