The confusion in the public stems from the fact that the news media selectively reports on recession in different ways depending on which party is in power. They ignore your fact when one party is in power and they highlight the "2 quarters of no growth" rule of thumb instead. Then when their guy is in power they go out of their way to say "Akshually a recession isn't defined by that it is defined by a committee."
Well, its just 1 example because BBC and Reuters were only in your Imgur link with a timestamp saying in 2020 that it was a recession.
And in your only example the person (Ben White -- CNBC) explicitly call out a double digit decrease in their claim of recession. The current situation is not a double digit decrease so it's not hypocritical. Certainly somebody is going to be hypocritical in when they call a recession but Ben White's two comments you've quoted aren't.
