Today I learned that the San Francisco Fed performs daily tracking of economic news sentiment. Here it is since the end of the Great Recession:
The index is currently at 0.17, roughly equal to the peaks between 2014 and 2020. However, it only rose above zero about three months ago. It took a long time for objectively good economic conditions to finally filter into the press.
The SF Fed's index covers only newspapers. On the one hand, this is bad because it doesn't count TV news shouters that lots of people listen to. On the other hand, it's good because it doesn't count TV news shouters, who are mostly out of their minds. Call it a wash.
Just because you don't like "TV News Shouters" doesn't change that most voters obtain their news from them. Look at what appears on social media -- reposts of videos taken from those same TV News Shouters. Newspapers and their online equivalent are read by a small minority of folks.
Social media is a small minority of morons dominated by a large majority of morons.
There is no TV news. What are you talking about, Beavis?
Your streaming service doesn't carry it?
"Media coverage of the economy has finally broken into positive territory"
Politically, this is good. Joe Biden deserves more credit from the media for where the economy stands today.
Economically, this is bad news. The media lags reality so severely that positive coverage has become a leading indicator of an impending downturn.