Fox News shamed for trying to spin 'blockbuster' jobs report

Fox News editors tried to spin Friday’s surprisingly strong jobs report into an attack on President Joe Biden and Democrats — and it didn't go well.

On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the July jobs numbers, which showed that the U.S. economy added more than 500,000 new jobs.

CNN called it a “massive jobs surprise.” Even CNBC’s conservative editor Rick Santelli, who sparked the Tea Party movement with an on-air rant, heralded the jobs report as “a whopper.”

Analysts overall expected the report to show 258,000 new jobs created, but it came in more than double that, with 528,000 new jobs. Unemployment dropped slightly to 3.5%, far below the 5% mark economists used to use as a marker of “full employment.”

Economists cheered the results. Even those typically more pessimistic found the jobs report excellent news. Some said it signaled the absence of a recession, and predicted inflation would come under control as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates. The price of gas has also dropped dramatically, with some stations now selling at under $3.00 a gallon.

Meanwhile, Fox News decided to use the White House’s prediction that the jobs numbers would not be great against them.

The Daily Beast’s media reporter Justin Baragona posted a screenshot of Fox News’s chyron that blasts the White House for not getting the estimate right. A casual observer, say, in an airport, would likely assume the jobs report was bad and blame the Biden administration.

It read: “WH Misses Forecast on Lower July Jobs Growth.”

You can see the Fox News report here.

Media Matters’ Eric Kleefeld noted that Fox News Business’s Larry Kudlow, a former Trump top advisor, and former Trump advisor Kevin Hassett both predicted the jobs number would come in exactly the same as what the Biden White House predicted, and were preparing since Thursday for bad news: Public Notice’s Aaron Rupar says Fox News suggested the jobs report was too good.

Attorney Brad Moss, a frequent social media commenter, observed: “Fox News is desperately trying to spin this blockbuster jobs report against Biden. If Trump was in office, they’d be running celebration videos complete with champagne.”

Just after 8:30 AM ET when the report was released, “Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade immediately mocked President Joe Biden as they shared the numbers.

Fox News Business’ Charles Payne was on set to discuss the report. Looking for negative spin, he announced that the jobs number was the best since March, adding the numbers had “been trending lower since March sequentially.”

Begrudgingly admitting “it’s a really good number,” he pivoted to “participation” in the workforce. He called it “amazing that we have not gotten back up to the same level of participation” since before COVID.

But as CNBC reported: “private sector payrolls are now higher than the February 2020 level, just before the pandemic declaration.”

You can see the Fox News report here.

With David Badash.