Media to America: Disaster Seen as Catastrophe Looms

I quoted James Lileks’ take on AP’s feverish doomsday piece yesterday, and James Pethokoukis describes AP’s screed thusly:

“I know you’re just a reporter, but you used to be a person, right?” is a quote from the film Deep Impact and immediately came to mind after I read this article from the Associated Press. (It actually took two people to write it.) The “article” made me weep for my chosen profession. The absolutely disgraceful lead:

Is everything spinning out of control? Midwestern levees are bursting. Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are abysmal. Air fares, college tuition and health care border on unaffordable. Wars without end rage in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism. Horatio Alger, twist in your grave. The can-do, bootstrap approach embedded in the American psyche is under assault. Eroding it is a dour powerlessness that is chipping away at the country’s sturdy conviction that destiny can be commanded with sheer courage and perseverance.

I dunno, maybe contributing to our low national morale are media that 1) compare a weak economy