Absolutely Pathetic: AP Report Says GM, Chrysler Lost 400,000 Jobs in 2008 | NewsBusters.org

Absolutely Pathetic: AP Report Says GM, Chrysler Lost 400,000 Jobs in 2008 | NewsBusters.org

For the record, total U.S. employment at General Motors at the end of 2007 was about 110,000, according to this early February 2008 item. This November 2007 link indicates that Chrysler at that point had 71,000 employees worldwide (59,000 expected to remain plus 12,000 jobs expected to be eliminated). The two entities combined obviously did not have 400,000 U.S. jobs to shed at the beginning of 2008. Whether they are even legitimately "rebounding" is also more than a little questionable, but will be left alone for now.

Superville's stunner makes it clear that, in journalism and so many other endeavors, the problem isn't only that basic math skills have fallen so steeply (which they have). It's that people who one would expect to be able to detect self-evidently out of line numbers like the one above, i.e., journalists like the AP's Superville reviewing her own work, as well as the layers of alleged editors at the self-described "Essential Global News Network," clearly can't or won't do it.