Categories: OLD Media Moves

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.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.

View Comments

  • Why in the world would this complaint be sent to me, a reporter?

    We have established places for complaints -- corrections@nytimes.com goes to the standards editor and public@nytimes.com goes to the public editor.

    All emails are read by senior editors well above the reporter/photographer/artist and are pursued to resolution (except, and I presume here, for obvious psychiatric case emails of which all newspapers get plenty).

    We correct errors. Period. SInce Mr. Leonhardt is a columnist this may fal into a more gray area, but if presented it will be addressed so instead of braying into cyberspace or to me (who works mostly 300 miles from the newsroom and has no authority on this) it should be directed to the two email addresses above.

  • To be clear, my reference to psychiatric cases in an earlier post is to my assumption about the practical applicaton of a policy. It was not directed in any way at the gentleman who complained to me about my colleague.

  • I hope this gets posted, as a comment I left earlier this morning wasn't.

    I very much appreciate Mr. Johnston's clarification.

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