Year Ago GDP Jump ‘Disappointing’; This Year Negative GDP: ‘Whole Lot Brighter,’ ABC Credits ‘Stimulus’
A year ago, when the government reported second quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) doubled from the first quarter to 1.9 percent, the CBS Evening News centered a story around the “disappointing” news while ABC and NBC didn’t utter a syllable about the GDP jump.
But Friday night, with a different President in office, Couric crowed a one percent decline in the 2009 second quarter GDP — the first time since tracking began in 1947 that the economy has contracted for four straight quarters — means the “glimmer of hope just got a whole lot brighter” with “the latest evidence the recession is easing.” ABC anchor Elizabeth Vargas saw “new optimism about an economic recovery” and declared of the new negative number: “That’s actually good” since “economists had projected the number would be worse.”