If right, then they were junk numbers and so is the current batch. But you have to admit Trump and his ilk were right and you agree with them.
If wrong, then they were good numbers and so is the current batch. But then you have to admit that the economy hasn't tanked, even if unemployment is usually a lagging indicator.
Most media played it straight. The numbers under Obama were decent; the numbers under Trump are no less decent.
Some try to play it less straight. So the morning after Trump was declared winner international financial markets had a sharp downturn. The host of one syndicated financial broadcast said it was clearly because Trump won and we were likely in for trouble. That day there was a rebound and other markets also turned up. That same host, same day, but in the evening edition said that one really can't draw any inference from one-day fluctuations in the market, and it would be pretty lame for anybody to do so (now that the inference would have to be 'Trump good', and Fox was apparently trying precisely that); he pretended that just a few hours before he'd drawn exactly that kind of inference. It's okay when he did it, lame when Fox did it. I'm still unconvinced he even noticed his own lamitude.
In recent years, more media try to find the "truth" under the numbers, numbers which before constituted the truth. Before it was bad to say bad things, unless forced to--then what can you do? Now it's bad to not find something bad to say, unless there's no alternative, in which case you can at least sound pissed off that there's nothing bad to say.
It's a bad game to play. Buzkashi is better. No, wait, actually it's about the same.
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