There is a fragile balance that must be adhered to when reporting on socioeconomic issues, especially in the days following a recession that threatens to turn into one of the double dip variety. President Obama recently signed a bill to extend the Bush era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, and he did so in exchange for an extension of long term unemployment benefits. Knowing this should be more than ample evidence that we're not out of the woods yet and that there are a lot of people out there feeling the bite of layoffs, slim prospects for jobs, and a sluggish economy that can't seem to get itself on track for longer than a week at a time. Listening to NPR, though, one might get the sense that we're actually in a period of sustained economic growth and not two steps removed from a second Depression.

When one listens to NPR, or reads publications such as the New York Times, there's a certain conceit one has to buy into: both are squarely aimed at liberals. This isn't a secret or even something that's not readily acknowledged. It just is.

What one expects from this type of liberal publication can be found in the editorials, analysis and reporting on a variety of issues. Along with this, one would expect a certain amount of sympathy for the lower classes, and one certainly gets this throughout the year, but especially during the holidays when individuals are featured in a series called the Neediest Cases in the New York Times. On NPR, one could recently hear a listener comment regarding the tale of giving jackets and other clothing to two impoverished school children.

All of this seems to be paying nothing more than lip service to the cause when it's balanced out with stories on NPR regarding shoppers having to face the indignity of patronizing a Wal-Mart instead of a Bloomingdales, or the numerous stories in the Times chronicling the hardly struggling classes tricking their spouses with generic versions of common grocery items like canned vegetables or the rise of the dollar store. This is not to mention the numerous stories of unemployed individuals who can't seem to find any work, which, on the face of it, may be true, but it seems to neglect to mention that the individuals, who had high paying jobs in any number of sectors, are looking for jobs only in that particular field and pay range. None of these stories seem to feature typical lower class workers from the service industry or any other types of jobs that have been decimated in these harsh times.

The low point of this particular trend seemed to be in evidence during Friday's broadcast of Morning Edition. The author, Steve Dublanica, of Keep The Change: A Clueless Tipper's Quest To Become The Guru Of The Gratuity gave helpful hints on how much to tip during the holiday season. How much, for instance, does your doorman or gardener deserve? How about a week's salary! Tips on top of tips, especially during the holidays, seems to be the call of the day for those wealthy enough to have a doorman. One only needs to peruse the comments to see that my reaction is hardly uncommon. Terms and phrases such as "bribes" and "subsidizing an employer's ability to employ and employee" are scattered throughout, as is "cheapskate" for those who don't tip and, thus, are deserving of substandard service.

Sure, tips are a large part of a large portion of the service industry's many employees, but this type of story serves little purpose in furthering the notion that if pay scales were corrected and these workers actually made a livable wage, the need to rely on tips would not exist. When a doorman confides that he makes upwards of $9000 on tips, which constitutes a huge portion of his yearly income, one has to wonder whether or not this is 1. a lie 2. the truth that has happened on more than one occasion and that it has, in fact, become a huge percentage of his yearly income simply because it's happened and is expected. Expecting a gift and actually needing it are two different things, and, again, this seems lost on NPR, which does nothing but solidify my belief that they are superficial at best and condescending and demeaning at worst.