This just in: Economists suck! No, reporters suck!

I'm a news junkie, and I check Yahoo! News often. I scan the financial headlines, and this morning the two stories pictured at the right stuck out at me. What a beautiful contradiction from two widely respected news sources. This snafu is getting me to rethink my dependence on the so-called "news."

It is said that economists make weathermen look good. But, I'm not sure whether to blame economists or reporters for this one. Yahoo! placed these stories side-by-side, perhaps coincidental, or perhaps somebody's brilliant idea of irony.

Clearly, the news was "jobless claims rose." However, that's more of a statistic than an actual story. So, here we see "spin" in action: Make it surprising! Make it interesting! Don't just report the news... find an angle! And, when you say "than expected" in the summary, don't say who was doing the actual expecting.

In other news, the Dow rose 1.22 points today on the rumour that I would be posting to my blog today, later than expected. Meanwhile, Dow futures are indicating a 5 point rise tomorrow on the news that David Hasselhoff has agreed to pay $25,000 per month to support his ex-wife and children. Quick, call your broker!