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Wendell, NC, USA - In the mid-90s Jim Hightower used to say that, for the vast majority of Americans, the "Dow Jones averages" are meaningless numbers. What we really need to know are the "Doug Jones averages," like where can you get a decent used car for less than $1,400; can you buy beef unadulterated with antibiotics and growth hormones, and where; are the brightest kids getting into college and how are they paying for it if their parents are poor.

Combine that idea with one of Ralph Nader's oft-repeated statements in the run-up to the 2000 election, along the line that major newspapers and magazines apply their best research and statistics and analysis to sports. His point was that if the major media applied the same rigorous standards to national and international news -- and especially to Washington, D.C. -- as they do to sports, both Republicans and Democrats would be swept from office, and for good reasons.

1. When it comes to the news and analysis of the American economy, the major media have substituted the activities of a hopelessly corrupt financial system (NYSE, NASDAQ, the commodity exchanges, the mutual funds, the hedge funds, creative financing) for the facts about the real economy of the real U S of A.

Take, for example, employment statistics as announced by the U.S. Department of Labor. Does anyone believe Wa shington's figures on employment and unemployment? How many "new jobs" does it take to replace those who are let go from "old jobs" or "outsourced jobs" or jobs that will never be filled again? How many jobs are simply replacements and how many are, in fact, incrementally added to the American work force? When the White House says that there were 220,000 new jobs created last month, is that a net increase or a net decrease? The reporters and news analysts do not do the research, do not ask for the most important statistics and are unaware that what they are reporting is utterly meaningless to the common citizen.

Or take, for another example, the minimum wage. Most Americans believe that the minimum wage should be a livable wage. Here comes the clash between the statistics for employment and for poverty. We are still debating here what is the least that a person or family can be expected to live with. The conservatives state time after time that increases in the minimum wage are devastating to those who earn the minimum wage, because employers simply employ fewer of them and unemployment increases accordingly. That result, that employers employ fewer employees when the minimum wage is increased, is false and has been false since the minimum wage was instituted at the national level.

In every case, there is a brief period of adjustment, to be sure, but there is no major realignment of these low-paying jobs because the low-wage earners are doing work that has to be done. The call for increases in the minimum wage has been met with congressmen and senators giving out false information time after time after time. The reporters repeat the false information verbatim without correction, without research, without substantiation of any kind. Such reporting is worthless and useless to the common American citizen.

2. The statistics that are broadcast and reported to the American public are so, so suspect that only a fool can take them at face value. For employment and poverty, the U.S. government does not use actual counts of anything. They use surveys that they know do not yield the facts. They combine the surveys with "seasonal adjustments" or "corrections" or "averages": how do averages of mistaken information improve on the accuracy of mistaken information?

In sports, the earned-run average is thought to be a very meaningful number for the ranking of pitchers. The methods used to calculate it are so easy that children are able to calculate the changes to an individual pitcher on an inning-by-inning basis. Have you ever seen a "seasonally adjusted" earned-run average? Would anyone believe it if you reported such a number?

The U.S. government does not need surveys for most of the employment and poverty and taxation and mobility and wealth statistics. There are sufficient numbers, accurate numbers, reported in an ongoing basis to derive excrutiatingly precise statistics != not surveys, not averages, not phony "market baskets," but hard numbers.

But they would not be available the day or week after the end of a fiscal quarter. They would be available several weeks later. Some of these extremely hard numbers are used to correct the surveys, but why should be prefer the adjusted surveys to the hard numbers? The answers are easy: the White House and Congress do not want to have that information in the public domain because it would show the effects of their policies and politics.

3. The collection and reporting of accurate statistics are not all that difficult and the sports pages prove it. The news media report the statistics of sports because it is the basis of most of their analysis and forecasting. Most National Football League fans know which four teams were the top offensive squads and which were the top defensive teams != and which were the worst at offense and defense != and not just for this year, but at least for the last four to five years. Yes, of course, the sports pages are also filled with "celebrity" news, just as the national and international news are.

But I am sure that I do not need to know the names and addresses and backgrounds of the most recent infanticides of deranged mothers; nor the details of another kidnap or runaway from southern Utah or Brown's Park, Colorado, thank you; nor another drive-by shooting in South L.A.

The scientific, reproducible analysis of our economy, taxation, employment, cost of living, cost of housing, and more, need to be projected in the news side by side with the statements of elected officials: "the governor did not tell the truth when he said ... the president misstated the trends and tendencies when he announced ... Senator Bloviation misrepresented the facts when he justified his vote by saying ... "

My local newspaper, the Raleigh [N.C.] News and Observer, like most newspapers of our day, has the facilities to produce wonderful bar graphs, pie charts != statistical graphics of all sorts != but rarely uses them for meaningful analysis. I do not need to know what the poll numbers are for those who oppose and support gay or same-sex marriage, thank you. Likewise those for and against the teaching of evolution and intelligent design side by side in science classes. Such analyses simply broadcast to the world how naÔve and anti-intellectual the American public really is.

We all agree that the tax system for the State of North Carolina is not working. Few of us have the time and resources to get to the bottom of the problem. We thought that that was the province of news reporters and analysts != and if they could not get the facts, they sure could go to the places where people had the facts and report them. But we wait in vain.

And sure enough, every politician has a statement to make, a proposal to put forward, an analysis that gets reported verbatim != and we have absolutely no way to judge the reliability and accuracy of those statements. But there are always those who can afford to pay politicians to have the results come out to their benefit. And that is why we have the best government that money can buy.