Akuma,
I don't know if there is a conspiracy but I do know that the media seems to be spinning any news that they can, and ignoring any news they can't spin, to make the economy look like it is in better shape than it is. As an example of what I mean, last week the Deutsche Bank forecast that nearly 50% of mortages would be underwater by the first quarter of 2011 (about double what it was at the end of the first quarter 2009). Now (on its own) this is not a reason to panic, but with how much of the growth in spending over the past decade has been driven by home-equity based purchases its difficult to imagine consumer spending will return to pre-recession levels for several years; and when you combine this with the massive inventory of homes, the inability for many of these people to refinance or sell their homes means that the foreclosure rate will not return to normal for several years.
If the Deutsche Bank is correct (and they may or may not be) then the claims that we will see a recovery in 2010 are unrealistic, and yet few major news outlets carried this story; and those that did it was a small blurb with no analysis of what the numbers actually meant. When you compare the treatment of "negative" news about the economy compared to the "positive" news it becomes clear that the media is not providing balanced coverage.
