Jennifer Kursman Columnist

Oh, to be back on spring break. To journey back to a land without exams, without term papers, back to a magical realm where the most difficult decision was whether to drink the blue martini or the blue-green one ·

Reality bites, especially in today's media climate.

Where do you get your news? Increasing consolidations and multimillion-dollar media mergers have left staunch conservatives, ultraliberals and everyone in between complaining about a lack of balance on the airwaves. Even more appalling is the fact that many teachers never teach media literacy to schoolchildren.

Learning how to think critically should be one of the most important skills mastered by the time kids graduate from high school, yet many move into the adult world lacking a clear framework to understand the media's role in shaping public opinion.

Even more appalling is the fact that many teachers never teach media literacy to schoolchildren.

Last weekend, the Department of Labor announced that 308,000 jobs were created in March, the largest gain since April 2000. Bush administration officials quickly took notice, jumping to foolhardy conclusions like "The economy is looking up" and "This shows that Bush's economic policies are working."

Major news networks diluted the information further, into short blips such as "Good news: U.S. gains jobs."

Bush even said during a speech in West Virginia: "You can understand why I'm optimistic when I cite these statistics, because I remember what we have been through." Excuse me? Just what kind of economic hardship has Dubya been battling? Did the White House's pretzel supplier suddenly go bankrupt?

Numerous polls have shown that American jobs and national security will be the biggest issues in the November election. Most surveys have concluded that voters see John Kerry as strong on jobs and weak on security, and Bush as strong on security and weak on jobs.

So naturally, the re-election campaign would want to tout this seemingly wonderful number ÷ 308,000 ÷ as much as possible.

Obviously, no single person can be blamed for the economy's woes. But here are some other March 2004 numbers that weren't included in CNN's news ticker: Unemployment actually increased from 5.6 to 5.7 percent.

Employment was found largely in the service and construction sectors of the economy, which The New York Times attributed to warmer weather and the termination of a grocery workers' strike in California.

Also, just because people have found jobs doesn't necessarily mean they have found a source of income to support themselves.

The Detroit Free Press reported that the number of people in March "who worked part time because they couldn't find a full-time job rose to 4.7 million, up from 4.4 million the previous month."

Try telling people in Michigan, many of whom rely on factory jobs in the auto plants, that the economy is "looking up." Last month, U.S. manufacturing jobs stagnated ÷ maybe because people have given up and quit searching.

In March, the number of people who have been unemployed for at least six months rose to 24 percent, the highest level since July 1983.

Additionally, workers' average weekly earnings decreased, and the average hours that non-management employees worked fell.

Here's an unambiguous fact: In extremely complex systems like the U.S. economy, a single statistic cannot represent the larger whole. As former domestic policy adviser Gene Sperling said, "One good apple does not save the whole bunch."

Don't get me wrong: I'm not blaming George Bush for the woes of the entire U.S. economy, and I realize that some people will write this off as a "gloom and doom liberal opinion."

All I'm saying is that it's important to look at the whole picture. Next time you're following that little news ticker, try to resist the temptation to take the information at face value. It's impossible to truly understand what's going on by reading a single sentence.

Jennifer Kursman is a biochemistry freshman. She can be contacted at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.