LAT on Wall Street

LAT reporter Walter Hamilton this morning hypes the recent volatility in the stock market, saying investors "have yanked the stock market down from its record highs of less than three weeks ago." At yesterday' close, the Dow was down 3.6 percent and the S&P 500 was down 5 percent, both from record highs. That's hardly what you would call "yanked." The reporter also confuses monetary policy with the the stock market, suggesting that by leaving interest rates unchanged, the Federal Reserve chose not to bail out investors. The Fed said they were most concerned with inflation, then with the economy. Stock market investors are on their own.

This kind of article fits a pattern. In recent years the LAT has failed to report on the economy in a balanced way, always suggesting in subtle ways that the economy was doing poorly and that recession was likely any day. Meanwhile, the economy was doing great. The LAT's agenda seems to be to report nothing good that could be attributed to Bush administration policy.