By George E. Curry | SACOBSERVER.COM WIRE SERVICES

(NNPA) - Few issues are as important in this presidential election as jobs. Yet, when it comes to covering the issue, journalists are doing an extremely poor job.

A recent New York Times story that is atypical of regular political coverage observes: "…Despite the stimulus from three rounds of tax cuts, a spectacular expansion of the federal budget deficit and enormous assistance from the Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates 13 times, the nation has at least 585,000 fewer jobs now than when Mr. Bush took office."

The article, written earlier this month by Edmund L. Andrews, notes: "It's official. President Bush will be the first president since Herbert Hoover to face re-election with fewer people working than when he started."

If most voters are ignorant of those facts, it can be attributed to the news media.

Pollster Peter Hart, in an article posted this month on www.fair.org, points out a string of misleading headlines and stories. A story in the Los Angeles Times (6/15/04) said, "Kerry's description of the economic climate ran counter to a substantial pickup of new jobs." The Wall Street Journal (6/23/04) declared in a front-page headline, "As the Recovery Gains Momentum, Democrats Are Forced to Refocus." And the Washington Post (6/19/04) blasted Kerry for "political gloom-mongering" – whatever that is – because he had been "telling voters this week that although job creation may have recovered, wages are the real problem."

In a correction box (6/22/04), the Post later acknowledged: "…We were wrong and Mr. Kerry was right. Hourly wages for non-supervisory workers rose 2.2 percent, while the consumer price index rose 3.1 percent."

USAToday donned its cheerleading garb with an editorial headlined, "Kerry's Gloomy Notes About Economy Ring Hollow." Of course, Kerry's pronouncements ring hollow only if one doesn't take into account inflation, which is what the newspaper mistakenly did.

Hart, a widely-respected pollster, writes: "As Investor's Business Daily reported late last year (12/8/03): 'The president's Council of Economic Advisers said in February the White House's 'Jobs for Growth Plan' would create 5.5 million jobs by the end of 2004. That would be 306,000 new jobs each month, starting in July 2003, when the plan went into effect.' Monthly job growth has met or exceeded this target twice since that starting point – in March and April 2004. In nine out of 14 months, the economy has fallen at least 200,000 jobs short of the mark."

The media's penchant for strongly favoring George W. Bush in its reporting – or to portray Bush's lies as "dueling data," as NBC's Norah O'Donnell put it (6/14/04) – is not limited to reporting on employment.

The central problem, as Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) noted in a May 20 report titled, "Campaign Double Standards," is that journalists do not hold Bush to the same standards that they require of Kerry.

"While the press corps applies microscopic scrutiny to Kerry's statements, looking for evidence of misstatements or 'flip-flops,' Bush gets little criticism for making false assertions," the report notes. Bush falsely claimed that Saddam Hussein would not allow weapons inspectors into Iraq when, in fact, he did and they remained there until the war was imminent.

"Few reporters ever mentioned this substantive falsehood … most major news sources chose not to bring up Bush's false statement – the New York Times was silent on the issue, as were the nightly newscasts of ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS."

The report continues, "Bush's record is full of similar untrue statements. His claim that Enron's Ken Lay supported Bush's opponent in his 1994 gubernatorial race, when Lay actually contributed three times as much to Bush (ABC World News Tonight, 1/10/02); his insistence that the White House was not responsible for the 'Mission Accomplished' banner on the U.S.S. Lincoln (New York Times, 10/29/03); his statement in 2002 the economy 'was pulling out of a recession that began before I took office' (when it actually started in March 2001 – Slate, 12/30/02); his assertion in a 2000 debate that in his tax cut plan, "by far the vast majority of the help goes to the people at the bottom end of the economic ladder," when the bottom 50 percent really got roughly 10 percent of the benefits (Extra! 1/2/01); his boast that 'I've been to war" (Associated Press, 1/27/02) – to list just a few."

By now, Bush has figured out that he can lie to the American people anytime he wants to – and most of the time, the news media will not call him on it.

George E. Curry is editor-in-chief of the NNPA News Service and BlackPressUSA.com. His most recent book is "The Best of Emerge Magazine," an anthology published by Ballantine Books. Curry's weekly radio commentary is syndicated by Capitol Radio News Service (301/588-1993). He can be reached through his Web site, georgecurry.com.