I hold a BS in Econ and even I was shocked by how it was presented to the public. I figured there was a very good chance GDP would rebound for at least a quarter - and the political spin would be “Biden saves America from the Putin recession in record time” or something.

None of those talking heads had a single clue that the “two declining quarters” definition was simply a useful shorthand and yet they all immediately hopped on the exact same script.

Edit: in case it wasn’t clear, I 100% agree that we need more accurate definitions. So much needless harm is being done when the response to edge cases falling outside the colloquial understanding of a term is to quietly change dictionary definitions instead of educating the population.

If your bar for solving a political problem is 'We must first make sure everyone speaks about it the way I want them to speak', you're never going to get there. In a union of ignorance and malice, it's very easy for thought leaders to deliberately misframe speech, as they are the ones who determine both what we are allowed to talk about, and how we are allowed to talk about it.

The issue is that what you've seen since the pandemic started has been basically insane macroeconomic statistics that defy historical correlations, so whereas the US GDP declined in Q1 and Q2 of this year, there weren't corresponding declines in other statistics (e.g., unemployment stayed low). If half of the economic indicators are signalling "recession" and the other half are signalling "rip-roaring growth", any definition that pigeon-holes the economy into one or the other is likely a bad definition.