Oil & Gas Prices

Jim Axelrod of CBS “Evening News” provided the perfect metaphor for media coverage of gas prices last night. Axelrod just started traveling from New York to San Francisco as part of a new “Cross-Country Price Patrol,” On the first leg of his journey, he showed that he didn’t know where he was going with the story. Talking while he was driving, Axelrod said the following: “We know what kind of…

In a stunning example of how the mainstream press manipulates public opinion, as well as a clear explanation as to why the majority of the American people believes that the economy is doing poorly despite mountains of statistical evidence to the contrary, the press today decided to largely ignore one of the biggest one-day declines in energy prices in many months. As I reported here yesterday,…

Oil and gas prices had their biggest one-day decline in months today after an Energy Department report suggested that the highly-touted shortage that has been all over the news in the past couple of weeks is actually not the case.The September crude oil contract declined by $2.78 to $63.30 per barrel -- a 4.2% decline -- while September gas fell by 9.86 cents to $1.885 per gallon -- a 5% decline…

Unlike last week's brief but welcome departure from biased coverage on gas prices, CBS's Early Show was back to form with its biased reporting today, this time with correspondent Mark Strassmann faulting businesses for factoring higher gas prices into the price of goods and services: "And as prices keep going up, more businesses want customers, want you, to pay fuel surcharges, as if paying for…

As Mark Finkelstein accurately noted earlier this morning, NBC’s Today gave big play to the supposed havoc that rising fuel prices are having on American society. But the hype reached ridiculous levels when Katie Couric insisted during Monday’s show opening that “I had to take out a loan to fill up my minivan. It’s crazy.”Couric makes at least $15 million a year co-hosting Today.Here’s how Couric…

So, have you noticed that gas prices are heading higher?The San Francisco Chronicle certainly has. In fact, after reading this Sunday's front-page article on the subject, as well a business section cover story from the same issue, one gets the sense that the economy is about to crumble at any moment as a result. Of couse, that's if you only read the portion of these articles on the covers of…

On Friday night, reporting on the rise in the price of a barrel of oil to $66.87, CBS anchor Bob Schieffer inaccurately described that as a “record high,” ABC anchor Bob Woodruff erroneously referred to it as “another new high” and NBC's Brian Williams fallaciously declared: “Oil prices at an all-time record again today.” But NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell, in a piece on what is causing the…

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams on Tuesday night wondered, “with many of the numbers and many economists saying the economy is in good shape in this country, the question is: Why isn't President Bush benefitting from that?” Reporter Kelly O'Donnell inadvertently provided part of the answer when she suggested the lack of public confidence in the economy is “fueled most notably by record…