Don't you get tired of conspiracies?

The September Jobs Report is out and it is great news for Americans. Great growth in jobs numbers as well as previous months being revised upwards!

Today’s report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that private sector establishments added 104,000 jobs last month, and overall non-farm payroll employment rose by 114,000. Revisions to the previous two months added another 86,000 jobs.  The economy has now added private sector jobs for 31 straight months. Taking account of the preliminary benchmark revision (+453,000) released last week, the economy has added a total of 5.2 million private sector jobs during that period.

Previous monthly numbers are always revised, upwards or downwards, because part of the method of determining the current month's numbers is an estimation based on other statistical factors. After another couple of months, the actual data becomes available so we can revise those previous numbers to match reality instead of being a statistical projection. In short, if we are revising numbers upward then it means the economy was doing better than we thought it was as well as accelerating instead of slowing down.

What were the reactions of the media? These are all screenshots from the front page of different online news sites:

 I'll give you one guess as to which of these was Fox News.

Dear Fox News viewers, don't you ever get tired of the conspiracy?

It takes SO much energy to be constantly running around with your hair on fire proclaiming how horribly biased EVERYONE ELSE is while you, of course, are perfectly fair and balanced. 

To use a phrase from a children's educational tv show that Mitt Romney wants to shut down:

"One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn't belong." 

Many arguments can be made about whether the unemployment rate of 7.8% (which kicks Romney's "never below 8%" line right in the butt) is properly reflective of reality, but the real point here is that regardless of flaws in the method of calculation... IT'S THE SAME CALCULATION AGAIN AND AGAIN.

If you want to dismiss this number has a conspiracy to defraud the electorate, then you must admit that all of the times you broadcast positive descriptions of the Jobs Reports for George W Bush that you were defrauding the electorate. 

So, maybe... just maybe... you could take a moment and think about the possibility that Fox News' reporting is WILDLY different from all of the other mainstream media because Fox News is distorting the story for political and financial gain. I know, I know, you tend to believe that Fox News is the only one telling the truth... but just for a moment, please humor me and seriously think about just how much energy is necessary to support a world-wide conspiracy theory in which all news outlets are intentionally lying in the same way.

Fox News has the highest ratings of any media outlet. Don't you think one of those other major outlets would like to stand out from the pack and increase their ratings as well? They are all for-profit enterprises, so why would they want to run the same story that everyone else is running? So, please, just take a moment think about this:

Maybe they're running the same story as everyone else because it's the true story.