ABC Pimps New Gas Price Bias: Prices at Pump Drive Woman to Prostituti
Ho no, here we go again. Gas price hysteria from the MSM. "Here's a troubling look at what some people are doing for gas. A 34-year-old Kentucky woman was arrested for prostitution after she was allegedly trading sex for $100 gas cards."So began a video story at ABCNews.com, which made today's top headlines roundup with the teaser headline: "Sign of the Times: Sex for Gas." While the short video…
ISM Manufacturing Goes into Expansion Mode; AP Changes Subject
Earlier this week, to avoid "undue" emphasis on how much the situation has been improving in Iraq, the press, in search of bad news, switched its focus to Afghanistan (examples here, here, and here). Kyle Drennen and Warner Todd Huston at NewsBusters noted this on Tuesday. Similarly, Associated Press writer Ellen Simon, confronted with a key report showing economic improvement, decided that it…
CBS: More Food Stamps Allotments Needed to Match Food Inflation
Food inflation is hitting everyone - even if don't have to pay for food. According to the July 2 "CBS Evening News," part of its "The Other America" series - a title strangely similar to former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards' liberal anti-poverty mantra of "Two Americas" - food stamp recipients are being hit by the rising the cost of food. "With food prices climbing, more and…
GMA: Hot Dogs Will Take 'Big Bite' Out of Wallets
Thursday’s "Good Morning America" used the Fourth of July holiday to exaggerate the effects that food prices are having on consumers. In its "Hitting Home" segment, reporter Sharyn Alfonsi reported on the price increases of certain Fourth of July barbecue staples, claiming that "Americans are gonna eat 110 million pounds hot dogs and that could take a big bite out of their wallets."…
Opposite Trajectories: Rush and The Newspaper Business
Rush Limbaugh's new deal with Clear Channel, as flashed by Drudge (also covered or addressed here and here at NewsBusters; here at the New York Times; and here in a very long New York Times magazine article), is north of $400 million for the next eight years.Good tax planning too: Maharushie will get his reported nine-figure signing bonus this year before a possible President Obama does his…
CBS’s Ben Tracy: People ‘Don't Have Enough Left’ After Gas to Go
With Starbucks’ announcement that it will closing 600 of its locations nationwide, the network morning shows on Wednesday heralded this news as another sign of a bad economy. ABC’s Bianna Golodryga on "Good Morning America" lamented that "Americans are struggling just to pay for a cup of Starbucks coffee." NBC’s Matt Lauer’s clever headline: "Trouble brewing -- Starbucks announces its closing 600…
R.F.K. Jr.: Oil, Coal Subsidies Over $2 Trillion Per Year
During June 30th's "Larry King Live," Robert F. Kennedy Jr., senior attorney at the National Resource Defense Counsel, made a head-turning statement regarding subsidies to the oil and coal industry, and not a single panelist challenged him on it. Not that one would expect King himself to do it; however, the other panelists included Chevron's David O'Reilly and ABC's John Stossel. Relevant portion…
CBS ‘Early Show’ Declares Recession
On Monday’s CBS "Early Show," co-host Harry Smith talked to economic analyst Mark Zandi about the state of the economy and asked: "Oil's up, gasoline's up, food prices up, stocks, way, way, way, way down. Home owner -- home values are down. Is there an end in sight to all of this bad news?" Zandi replied: "You just made me depressed. No. It's just bad news. It really is...It's just a really tough…
How Will Print Media's Financial Problems Affect Its Coverage
The question that is this post's title occurred to me as I read through this report earlier today by Seth Sutel of the Associated Press. I believe the question is important, and that its potential implications are underappreciated. Sutel first summarized the week's financial events in the media business. It wasn't pretty: Even for an industry awash in bad news, the newspaper business went through…
Heroic Detroit Paper Portrayals of ACORN Ignored Its Sordid History
Two June 23 Motor City newspaper reports -- one in the Detroit Free Press ("Group blasts subprime loans," by Amber Hunt), the other in the Detroit News ("ACORN focuses on vote," by Mike Martindale) -- portrayed the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) as a noble enterprise dedicated to helping troubled borrowers and increasing voter involvement in the political process.…
CBS News Portrays $7 Gas as Positive
Expensive gas isn't so bad to the "CBS Evening News," as long as it promotes an agenda that caters to left-of-center sensibilities and makes Americans behave more like Europeans. Economists from Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) (NYSE:CM) forecasted $7-a-gallon gas prices by 2010, which according to some analysts would force 10 million vehicles off U.S. roads over four years. CIBC…
'Nightly News': Is General Motors Going Out of Business
General Motors has been in business since 1897, but there are fears now propagated in the media that the longtime American icon faces an uncertain future. Brian Williams raised the possibility of General Motors (NYSE:GM) going out of business on the June 26 "NBC Nightly News" to Jim Cramer, host of CNBC's "Mad Money." "[J]im, I know you talk about this, think about this everyday for a living…
Bad Economy Kills Pet Dogs, Cats, Pigs, Goats...and People Too
Going to extraordinary lengths to pull at the heartstrings of viewers, Wednesday's NBC Nightly News focused on, in the words of anchor Brian Williams, “the innocent victims of the foreclosure crisis” -- that would be dogs, pigs, goats and horses. Meanwhile, ABC discovered people are more likely to get murdered at work in these “hard economic times,” though they really haven't been. At the end of…
