[1] Not media-quoted or foregrounded for the public.
The media narrative is out of the control of the various statistics bodies, and it is up to the informed reader to seek out better sources if the article they are reading has scanty info. For the record though, FRED is frequently cited as a source in reputable mainstream media (I see it in the NYT all the time). Read The Economist some time, that's an international news source that will deeply report on these stats. Can't be helped if people prefer Fox or other garbage as their news diet.
You are complaining about media literacy and bad journalism, which is an entirely separate issue from the fact that the data both exists, and is extremely easy to access.
The frustration isn’t about access it is about trust.
People want metrics that reflect lived reality and can’t be spun or redefined every election cycle.
It is also possible to try to paint journalists as worst then they are ... that is good for actual quacks that to not like the good data.
Why are we wasting our time having this discussion and not just debating the finer points of Wittgenstein?
Once basic needs are met humans mostly do things for fun and entertainment. Truth seeking is mostly an after the fact justification for what was fun and entertaining in the moment.
Sich meinen, einer regel zu folgen, ist nicht, einer regel folgen.
Study the path other autocrats blazed for Trump, who is following and mimicing their tactics pretty closely now. Aggressive Fed interference is on his agenda, as can be seen by the way he likes to keep his fights with Powell constantly in the news cycle.
At least the few adults that are left, along with the market, start getting very upset when certain politicians target the fed.
As if you can go more granular than Producer Price Index by Commodity: Chemicals and Allied Products: Thermoplastic Resins and Plastics Materials https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU0662
It is like with GDP and unemployment. These are incredibly hard things to measure at the scale of the US economy. How can a thinking person not understand this is beyond me.
Measurement theory is not a subject taught pretty much anywhere? I have a masters in economics and the only reason I have more than an inkling of understanding of these things is via an internship at our nations statistical bureau.
You get taught to think With numbers. Thinking About numbers is pretty special! Physics, econometrics, abstract math, statistics - they force you to think About numbers. The rest is thinking With numbers.
The people that gather and publish the data are historically pretty unbiased and open about methods. You can go get the raw data and methods. Some of the places that publish them like FRED, are not even under direct political jurisdiction. They are not at all the part of the government that is affected by the data they publish, and being run by a reserve bank puts them at pretty far reach from meddling by DC.
You can't stop politicians from using the data they like most, but don't pretend that ALL of the data isn't available in useful format.
1. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/tags/series?t=credit+cards