Being sick in bed for the better part of the week is a real eye-opener.

Besides the curious experience of buying Advil, Orange Juice, and one of those comical sleep masks you see people wearing on airplanes, at a Wegmens' at three o'clock in the morning, you get to pass the hours alternately sleeping and watching television.

Daytime television.

If the Wiggle's aren't your thing, and you think Judge Judy deserves to be hauled off in chains, then your choices grow limited. Me? I opted for ESPN for a while (I'm from Boston and the Red Sox are -- woo-hoo! --poised to win it all) and then over to the business channels for the market news of the day.

So I'm watching CNN and I saw a report that half of Americans think the U.S. is in a recession. Now, I wrote about that study last week, never dreaming a supposedly reputable national news network would give any credence to it, unless it was to debunk the report based on the factual evidence that clearly demonstrates the U.S. is not in a recession.

But there it was, with the news anchor breathlessly intoning that "Nearly half of Americans feel the U.S. economy is in a recession, marked by a significant decline in economic activity.” I waited for the reporter to chide the study's results, and to point out that the U.S. economy was, in fact, expanding and not contracting. Nope . . . more doom and gloom about vague economic indicators pointing southward.

Sigh. Just a teeny-tiny bit of reporting would have easily revealed that the major economic indicators -- GDP, real income, employment, industrial production and wholesale-retail sales -- are all stable or on the rise. Here are the facts, easily obtainable for a high-school newspaper reporter. GDP has expanded for 23 consecutive quarters, dating back to the third quarter of 2001. Employment has increased for 49 consecutive months, dating to September 2003. Industrial production continues to grow, with its latest reading coming in at 114 percent of its 2002 average. The same for personal income and manufacturing and trade sales as calculated by the Conference Board.

So . . . where is the evidence that the U.S. economy is in a recession? Why is CNN scaring people into believing we are in a recession, to the point where the network is both openly lying about the economy and rooting for its demise by publishing lousy studies?

The takeaway here is this: For accurate information on the health of the U.S. economy, focus on economic indicators reported by the federal government, and not media recession cheerleaders like CNN, for evidence as to whether or not there is a recession. When employment, industrial production, and other key indicators contract for at least a quarter, the indicators are recessionary. If they're not, like we see now, then we're not in a recession.

It can't get any clearer than that.

Honestly, it's enough to make you sick.