On the March 17 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, host Chris Matthews stated, “We don't produce bad [economic] news on this show,” later adding: “We only put out good news here on the economy.”

Matthews made his comments in response to guest Ron Christie -- a former special assistant to President Bush and former policy adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney -- who asked: “When do you ever hear people in the media come out and say the economy is strong in this country?” Christie later continued: "[W]hy doesn't the media, why don't we sit and have a conversation on Hardball and say, 'Let's talk about some of the good things [about the economy]'?"

As an example of the “good news” reported on MSNBC and Hardball, Matthews stated: “Every single night on this network, we produce on the half- hour, the latest stock averages. We show Nasdaq's doing well and Dow's [Industrial Average] doing well and the economy's doing well. We don't produce bad news on this show.”

But Matthews's “good news” reporting ignores one of the most vulnerable segments of the U.S. population -- lower-income people, particularly children. As Christian E. Weller, a senior economist at the Center for American Progress, noted in a March 14 statement, "Since President Bush took office, 3.7 million more people live in poverty." Weller wrote:

The share of the population living in poverty has grown from 9.5 percent in 2000 to 10.8 percent in 2004. At the same time, the share of children under the age of 18 who live in poverty has also increased from 16.2 percent to 17.8 percent. That is, 1.4 million more children lived in poverty in 2004 than in 2000.

Weller's statistics are derived from the U.S. Census Bureau's August 2005 study Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2004. The Census Bureau has not yet released national poverty statistics for 2005.

From the March 17 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:

MATTHEWS: After a while, people develop a reputation. And Dubai, Harriet Miers, Katrina, the bad intelligence in Iraq, the bad ability to predict what we're going to face when we got there, the promise that was broken, that all the oil would pay for the cost of the campaign. When do people stop believing in the competence of an administration?

CHRISTIE: Well, I think people actually still have a lot of faith in the competence of this administration. I'll turn the question around on you.

MATTHEWS: Where do you find that evidence?

CHRISTIE: Where do I find that evidence? One small fact. One, on the domestic side of the aisle, the economy is strong. If this administration was incompetent --

MATTHEWS: I agree with you.

CHRISTIE: Exactly.

MATTHEWS: Well, why don't people think so? How come when you ask them how the economy's doing, they're tougher on the economy than they are on Iraq?

CHRISTIE: Miraculously, Chris, because you never talk about it.

MATTHEWS: Wait a minute --

CHRISTIE: No, wait. When do you ever hear people in the media come out and say that the economy is strong in this country?

MATTHEWS: Every single night on this network, we produce, on the half-hour, the latest stock averages. We show Nasdaq's doing well and Dow's doing well, and the economy's doing well. We don't produce bad news on this show.

CHRISTIE: No, no, no. You're not hearing my point. What I'm saying to you is, if we spent as much time talking about what's going on across America -- if you look, and you have five states around the country right now who have the unemployment rates at the lowest level. If you look at the unemployment rates of the 50 states around the country, 46 of those states have had the unemployment rates go down. Consumer confidence is up, people are spending more money. People have the confidence by spending and opening their wallet --

MATTHEWS: But why don't people say things are going well?

CHRISTIE: Because - what I'm saying to you is, why doesn't the media, why don't we sit and have a conversation on Hardball and say, “Let's talk about some of the good things”?

MATTHEWS: We only put out good news here on the economy.