The dramatic collapse of gas prices is one story the news media didn’t see coming. In fact, as recently as June 2014, network news anchors and reporters were still talking about the prospect of $5 gasoline.
It turns out the media aren’t very good fortune tellers, and when it comes to gas prices they were wrong this time, just as many new outlets had gotten it wrong years earlier.
Not long after 12 cartoonists and editors were murdered at the Paris office of the Charlie Hebdo magazine last Wednesday, news outlets around the world faced a difficult dilemma: produce images of satirical cartoons of Mohammed from the weekly publication and face the possibility of being attacked by other terrorists; or play it safe by using other pictures instead.
One organization that wrestled with the problem was National Public Radio, which debated whether or not to post such illustrations on its website, according to Mark Memmott, the company's standards and practices editor.
Subtracting state and federal taxes and fees on gasoline, the price of a gallon of gas would fall below $2 in 29 states, according to data published by the American Petroleum Institute in October 2014, and by AAA. AAA said the national average for gas dropped to $2.394 per gallon on Dec. 22. while the average state and federal gas taxes and fees averaged a whopping 49.28 cents-per-gallon, or more than 20 percent of the total price.
Those gas taxes, which are hidden by being incorporated into the pump price of gasoline, also went unmentioned by the broadcast network evening shows from Sept. 29 to Dec. 21.
Thanks in part to the widespread use of technologies like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, global oil prices plummeted in 2014. Energy experts even predicted the U.S. could be the top oil producer in the next several years.
While even President Barack Obama recently hinted at his support for hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, the broadcast networks often portrayed it negatively. Between Sept. 29 and Dec. 8, the networks’ evening news shows stories about oil and gas largely ignored fracking’s contribution to lower prices
Now that the tumult over the decision by the grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri, not to indict police officer Darren Wilson for the death of black 18-year-old Michael Brown has begun to subside, the Washington Post and ABC News commissioned a poll to determine what people across the country think about the choice, and the survey resulted in some surprising numbers.
By a margin of 48 to 45 percent, this telephone poll conducted November 25-26 and 28-30 among a random national sample of 1,011 adults -- including users of both conventional and cellular phones – determined that more people approve of the grand jury's action than Barack Obama's handling of the situation.
With the fighting between Israel and Hamas halted – for now – it’s important to look at the role media played aiding Palestinian terrorists. Network news shows embraced a new narrative – moral equivalency. Hamas and Israel were treated as equals. Reporters and anchors almost never called Israel’s enemy Hamas a “terrorist” organization.
ABC, CBS and NBC journalists referred to Hamas as “militants,” “fighters” or “soldiers” 13 times more often than they called them “terrorists.” (65 stories to 5 stories.) All three networks were almost equally bad – ranging in coverage from 12-to-1 to 15-to-1, calling Hamas militants/fighters/soldiers vs. terrorists.
If an NFL team ends up taking Michael Sam in a late draft round – or not at all – don’t blame the media. The Missouri defensive end came out of the closet to near universal media adulation (coincidentally timed with the NFL Combine in February). Now, with the draft looming on May 8, ESPN and ABC are doing their parts to make sure Sam is picked.
ESPN announced May 7 that it’s bestowing Sam with the Arthur Ashe Courage Award. The ceremony doesn’t take place until July, but it’s never too early to remind NFL coaching staffs that Sam had the courage to join society’s most trendy and celebrated grievance group.
Hurricane season ended Nov. 30, with an all time-low for hurricanes. The weak outcome didn’t fit the environmental disaster narrative the media had concocted leading up to hurricane season. ABC, NBC and CBS devoted broadcasts to scaring viewers with news of “devastating tornadoes, searing heat waves, withering droughts” and “powerful hurricanes.” But they became strangely silent once the season finished … and next to nothing had happened.
Reporters gobbled up the news when the NOAA predicted “more and stronger hurricanes” this season. In May, forecasters predicted seven to 11 Atlantic hurricanes, but the area only saw two storms become hurricanes. In fact, there were no hurricanes until September 11 this year, almost beating the 2002 record for the latest start to the hurricane season on record.
Liberals in the media are doing what they do best when it comes to Pope Francis today: misrepresenting him to their hearts’ content.
When asked in a press conference about celibate priests who suffer same-sex attraction, the Pope replied: “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge him?” – a view which is exactly in line with Church teaching. But of course, the media had a field day painting this orthodox statement as a sweeping approval of the gay lifestyle.
Identity theft. Government corruption. Ineffective solutions and broken promises. All of these problems have stemmed from electronic storage of medical records, but the United States is still moving forward with President Obama’s initiative he set in motion three years ago.
On July 13, 2010, President Obama mandated that hospitals and doctor’s offices convert all their paper medical records into a government-approved and regulated electronic system under the HITECH (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health) Act.
Even ABC News’s Cokie Roberts recognizes that the Obama administration has far overstepped its constitutional boundaries in obtaining the personal emails of Fox News reporter James Rosen. The political commentator denounced the Obama/Holder Justice Department’s actions on Tuesday’s Morning Joe on MSNBC, claiming the overreach was “appalling.”
Roberts later criticized the administration’s treatment of the press at large, arguing that the White House has its “own broadcasting network” that delivers “unfiltered presidential propaganda to people all the time.” Yes, she said that on MSNBC, failing to see the irony. And yes, this is the same Cokie Roberts that just last week marveled at how Obama’s presidency was “scandal-free.”