It wasn’t all bad news for businessmen in 2006. Positive portrayals included launching or touting a product or service and giving money to charity, as well as other things businessmen were accomplishing. In stories that had an obvious viewpoint about businessmen, only 43 percent of the portrayals were positive.

     These ranged from small-town business "heroes" to technology companies showing off their latest innovations. Occasionally journalists would highlight unique businesses and explain the ideas and principles behind an individual’s business vision.

     But perhaps one of the oddest examples was a rare, positive story about American manufacturing.

     "With all the reports about American jobs being shipped overseas and so many U.S. industries taking a real beating, our next story may surprise you because it turns out American manufacturing is still the envy of the world," said Katie Couric on the "CBS Evening News" December 5.

     So most Americans were probably surprised by this report – but apparently James Owens, CEO of Caterpillar, Inc., wasn’t aware of how the media had been covering manufacturing.

     When CBS’s Trish Regan asked Owens, "What surprises you the most about how Americans perceive manufacturing here in the U.S.?" he responded: "I guess it surprises me that Americans think somehow we’re losing."

     Regan then explained, "We’re not. Last year America produced $1.79 trillion worth of goods, almost twice as much as second-place Japan." She credited a "steady increase in worker productivity."

     Another positive story wasn’t as surprising – as media coverage showed disdain for businesses’ bottom-line focus, CBS appreciated one businessman who set that concern aside once a week.

     A November 23 story highlighted Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathy and his restaurants’ policy of closing on Sundays. Reporter Mark Strassmann showed that Cathy was interested in "principle" over "playing percentages" when it came to Sunday sales. The story included a customer and an employee who both liked the policy, saying it expressed to them a need to have family time and to take things a little slower on Sundays.

     "[We] should ask ourselves what’s important and what’s not important, and when you live to your convictions, people respect that," Cathy said.

     What were those convictions? Strassmann’s story was indirect. The reporter said Chick-fil-A would "give everyone a day of rest," and employee Melissa Wakefield said her family has "our church time together." Strassmann asked Cathy, "To you, Sundays are about something more than just making money?"

     In stories that had an obvious viewpoint about businessmen, the five news programs had only 32 appearances or mentions of entrepreneurs and innovators – in a nation that saw more than 400,000 patent applications in 2005, according to the Patent and Trademark Office.

     One pair of businessmen recognized as innovators was the duo who founded YouTube. Chad Hurley and Steve Chen appeared in the positive position of being offered a cool billion for their once-lowly project.

     "YouTube has quickly become a must-see social phenomenon," said CBS’s Anthony Mason on October 6. He noted it was the "brainchild" of Hurley and Chen, "two guys just trying to share their home movies," who could now "be headed for a billion-dollar payday."

     Even if they weren’t depicted as savvy entrepreneurs, many businessmen were shown touting a product or service. In fact, this category was the largest of the positive portrayals.

     Business services that were profiled included a September 4 NBC story about builders tailoring houses to older people. A new product was introduced in ABC’s December 29 profile of inventor Richard Ellenson, who came up with a "kid-friendly form of speech technology" to help kids with communication hindrances.

     Fox had the highest percentage of businessmen touting a product or service, at more than one-fourth (28 percent) of its portrayals that were either positive or negative.

     "Your World with Neil Cavuto" featured unique products and services such as the high-end airline Eos, which gave passengers their own "suites." They specialized in flights from New York to London, the August 25 story said, and planned to expand.

     "Procreation vacations" for couples who needed a little relaxation to help nature along were the subject of a December 25 story, as one businesswoman described her resort’s concept and travel packages.

     And a February 21 interview gave Irene Trammell, founder of fitness center "This is IT," a chance to explain her choice to open a Christian-themed exercise facility complete with Christian music and Bible verses on the walls.

     Interviews like those – highlighting people who ran businesses – were a big difference between Fox News’ "Your World with Neil Cavuto" and the other shows. Fox’s hour-long program gave businessmen a chance to talk without the tight editing constraints of the network evening news shows.

     This contrast was particularly evident in a February 2 interview Cavuto did with International Coal Group CEO Wilbur Ross, owner of the Sago mine. That’s the same CEO ABC’s Brian Ross attacked on January 6 after the tragedy at Sago. In the ABC interview snippet shown on "World News," Wilbur Ross could hardly get a word in edgewise.

     On Fox, however, Ross had plenty of time to answer the criticisms Cavuto addressed. The CEO detailed voluntary safety training his mine supervisors had received and improvements made to the Sago mine. He also had the opportunity to clarify the truth about a dispute between his company and the United Mine Workers union – showing that the union’s complaint had been blown out of proportion by other media outlets.

     Occasionally a mostly positive story would fizzle. CBS’s Steve Hartman had a knack for subtle undermining of businessmen, as he showed in his tale of the teenage grocer who was "a great kid, but he’s a businessman, too."

     Hartman struck again September 29 in an inspiring profile of football-star-turned-restaurant-owner Ken Hall. After a sports career-ending injury, Hall opened a barbecue restaurant and hired 66 high schoolers over the course of 17 years. In interviews with Hartman, those kids said Hall had been an invaluable mentor to them, not just a boss.

     Hartman told the story of one former employee: "Malakai Boyles came from a broken home and was nothing but trouble when he first started working at the barbecue place. Now he’s a law school graduate clerking with a federal judge in Dallas."

     Boyles gave a tribute to his former boss. "I learned from Ken how to be a father, how to be a husband, I mean, I learned everything. It’s just – it was more than a job. It was kind of a life lesson."

     Though Hartman included Boyles’ example in his story, by the end it was clear he was still focused on Hall’s lost football career.

     Hartman said the testimonies of the former barbecue employees proved "you don’t really have to do anything extraordinary to become a legend."

     Members of the media are unique in thinking that running a successful business and mentoring youth may not be "anything extraordinary." But just getting a business off the ground is tough. The Small Business Administration reports that more than half of new businesses with employees will fail before they reach the four-year mark.

     Not only did Hall overcome that statistic, but he provided a solid, positive example and father figure to a young man from a broken home – just one of dozens of kids he mentored.

     There are many others like him. Men and women who are making businesses work and giving people a chance to make something of themselves. In the good stories, the audience caught glimpses of some of these entrepreneurs turning ideas into reality.

     The problem was that there weren’t enough stories about the good side of businessmen.

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