They're hanging the black crepe today at The New York Times, the Associated Press, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS and other mainstream media outlets. Why? Because the recession the media has been pining for months now has once again escaped their clutches.

This after the U.S. Commerce Department reported this morning that the U.S. economy grew by a better-than-expected 0.6% for the first quarter of 2008 (most analysts hand anticipated a growth rate of 0.5%).

Now I'm not going to tell you that a growth rate of 0.6% is any reason to celebrate, because it's not. The economy has slowed, and inflation, higher energy and commodity prices, and a lousy real estate market, especially if you're trying to sell a home, are all factors currently inhibiting higher economic growth.

But the GDP number, coupled with news from the U.S. Treasury Department that Federal tax receipts are up 7% from the same period a year ago, signal that things might just be getting better - or at least certainly aren't getting any worse.

Consequently, the cheerleading in the U.S. media for a full-blown recession has to stop, and one way to accomplish that is to point to another quarter of growth - and not a single quarter, as of yet, of contraction as measured by GDP. The classic definition of recession is two consecutive quarters of contraction, or negative growth - and we haven't seen a single quarter of negative growth yet, even though the media keeps insisting that we will.

Of course, today's number didn't phase one of the media's most ardent recession cheerleaders, the Associated Press's Jeannine Aversa.

After getting it wrong last month by telling readers that "Dangerous cracks in the nation's job market" are "ominous signs that the country is falling toward a recession or has already toppled into one," Aversa just wouldn't quit. Today she writes; "The bruised economy limped through the first quarter of this year at a six-tenths of a percentage point growth rate as housing and credit problems forced people and businesses alike to hunker down." Aversa goes on to predict negative economic growth again, this time for the April-June cycle.

Translation: "Okay, I grudgingly admit that the facts are against me, but I'll get my recession yet . . . oh yes I will, my pretty . . . "

Reuters played the news much more fairly . . .

First-quarter growth stronger than forecast
Wed Apr 30, 2008 9:35am EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The economy grew at a slightly stronger pace than forecast as 2008 began, helped by inventory-building that tempered a steadily deteriorating housing sector and less vigorous consumer spending.

So did Bloomberg News . . .

U.S. Economy Expanded at 0.6% Pace in First Quarter

By Shobhana Chandra

April 30 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. economy expanded at a 0.6 percent annual pace in the first quarter as an increase in inventories compensated for weaker consumer spending and a drop in business investment.

The gain in gross domestic product, the sum of all goods and services produced, was more than forecast and matched the rate of growth in the previous three months, the Commerce Department reported today in Washington. The last time the economy grew less was in the fourth quarter of 2002.

My wish for the doom-and-gloom media? Just stick to reporting the facts, and leave the predictions to the Tarot card readers. And leave the black pom-poms at home.