Wednesday, September 2, 2009

In the Media, Glass is Now Half Full

The headline in today's The Wall Street Journal, page 1, upper right in bold and in the second largest font on the page (just smaller than the name of the publication itself):

"Global Economy Gains Steam"

The subtitle of the same article in roughly half the font size:

"Jobs Still a Worry, but Factory Output Rises in U.S., China, France; Markets Falter"

The first two paragraphs were entirely positive except for the second paragraph's last sentence which placed a positive spin on a negative stating, in pertinent part, the "pace of contraction...slowed markedly."

I take the time to break this down in order to fully illustrate my thesis from my prior entry and to hopefully emphasize the correlation between presentation of information in the media and consumer sentiment. As a practical matter, the more articles written with this slant, the better for a real estate recovery.