U.S. government cuts off early look at economic data for news media
Source: CBS News
The U.S. Labor Department is ending its long-standing system of allowing news reporters to review government economic data, including high-profile reports on unemployment, retail sales and inflation, before the data is publicly released.
The department for decades has given news organizations an advance look at such data to give them time to assess the numbers and prepare news reports to be distributed once the data is officially released. News organizations had long valued the 30 minutes to an hour the Labor Department had given them in what are known as "lock-up rooms" to review the data, question government officials about it and ensure that their articles were accurate and complete when the information was released.
But William Beach, commissioner of the department's Bureau of Labor Statistics, said in announcing the decision last week that the past two months, when all such media lockups had been suspended over the coronavirus pandemic, had shown that the absence of the lockups did not cause much of a time delay or a decline in the accuracy of news reports.
snip
The Associated Press and several other news organizations protested that that decision would make the economic data releases less secure and less useful to the public. The news organizations also asserted that the department's new policy would fail to meet its stated objective of leveling the playing field between high-speed investment firms, which trade off the data in mere seconds, and the general public. Since then, the two sides had been engaged in negotiations toward a potential compromise.
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/feds-cut-off-early-look-at-economic-data-for-reporters/
greatauntoftriplets
(175,729 posts)So the speculation prior to the release will focus on what's expected to be negative. But it'll all come out at some point. Republicans hoist with their own petards once again.
bucolic_frolic
(43,111 posts)I don't think so!
not fooled
(5,801 posts)don't want competition.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)same as good news.
pecosbob
(7,534 posts)A 10%+ unemployment figure will doom this administration in November. No presidential re-election campaign can survive that number.
progree
(10,900 posts)the BLS on the first or second Friday of the month, as always. Though media reports about it will be some minutes later. More in #8 below https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=2500392
progree
(10,900 posts)Squinch
(50,932 posts)news cycle, doesn't make any difference. And it sounds like it required locked rooms and probably guards and lots of mishigas.
Doodley
(9,076 posts)reACTIONary
(5,770 posts).... insider trading. Not that it happened, but telling some few people in advance is more risky than telling noone.
progree
(10,900 posts)Now they don't. So everyone sees the report at the same time: 830 AM ET first Friday of the month (sometimes 2nd Friday), other than those who prepared the reports, as always. If some media person or people used to leak it early to someone(s), that source of leak is gone now. Of course the BLS people responsible for preparing the report could still leak.
Edited to add: now that I think about it, the sophisticated types that look at the BLS website at 830 AM ET will see the report some minutes before it gets more widely seen by most average investors through the news media. So the latter will be at a disadvantage, whereas before, the BLS report and the media reports both showed up at 830 AM ET.
reACTIONary
(5,770 posts)ashredux
(2,603 posts)machoneman
(4,006 posts)COVID-19 overall deaths, Florida, North Carolina and Texas infection rates and total deaths, which Fortune 1000 firms got the big $ government-backed loans and far, far more!
progree
(10,900 posts)it's just that media news stories reporting / analyzing it will come sometime later for who knows how long later -- maybe 5-10 minutes to get the bare-bones out from the report (the payroll jobs number and the unemployment rate) and whatever longer to do some more reporting and analysis.
In the past I've always gone to http://www.BLS.gov just before 830 AM ET and waited for the unemployment rate and payroll employment numbers to change on the right side and in the top headline, and then I click on the link to the unemployment rate or payroll employment (both links are always https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.toc.htm and the first item in this Table of Contents is the Summary which is always https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm ) and it starts out with a narrative with these 2 key numbers.
I'm sure that will be what the usual LBN posters who compete to be the first poster of the news will first post (first Friday of the month most months at 830 AM ET). Otherwise they will lose out to someone else who does.
When the monthly job reports come out: https://www.bls.gov/schedule/news_release/empsit.htm
For the rest of the year it will be on the first Friday of the month.
Ford_Prefect
(7,875 posts)yaesu
(8,020 posts)millions trading, manipulating the market.
progree
(10,900 posts)the sophisticated types that look at the BLS website at 830 AM ET will see the report some minutes before it gets more widely seen by most average investors through the news media reporting. So the latter will be at a disadvantage, whereas before, the BLS report and the media reports both showed up at 830 AM ET.
Doodley
(9,076 posts)Brainfodder
(6,423 posts)Igel
(35,293 posts)In other words, you wouldn't notice any different from the last two months--and since nobody made a big deal about it when they started doing it this way ...
progree
(10,900 posts)because BumRushDaShow posted this original version at 831 AM ET May 8 of the April jobs report. Somehow.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=thread&info=1&address=10142489386
The month before (April 3), the Washington Post had it out at 833 AM ET according to post #1 (which was posted 836 AM).
April 3, 2020 at 8:33 a.m. EDT