Bob McCarty Writes

When it comes to members of the mainstream news media and their penchant for making dire predictions about the economy, no one describes the phenomenon better than world-famous salesman and motivational speaker Zig Ziglar: “The media has accurately predicted ten of the last two recessions.”

One news outlets, The Independent, opted to take this approach to a new low in an article published yesterday under the headline, USA 2008: The Great Depression.

The photo showed a long line of what the caption described as “Disadvantaged Americans queue for aid in New York.”

What those attempting to “sell” this article to the public failed to explain was that the photo was not a recent photo. In fact, according to a post at The Campaign Spot blog at National Review Online, it was a 2005 stock photo The Independent had purchased the photo from Getty Images®.

Below is the photo’s original — and accurate — caption:

NEW YORK – NOVEMBER 30: People wait on line to receive donated coats at the kickoff of the 17th annual New York Cares Coat Drive a the Bowery Mission November 30, 2005 in New York City. Bloomberg helped give out coats to residents of the Mission and the coat drive hopes to collect and distribute 80,000 coats to needy New Yorkers by New Years. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

If you’re disgusted by The Independent’s foolhardy attempt to deceive readers about the state of the U.S. economy through, among other things, the use of three-year-old photos, let the editors know. Their e-mail addresses appear below:

* News Desk: newseditor@independent.co.uk
* Foreign Desk: foreigneditor@independent.co.uk