CBS Reports Chavezs Push for Higher Oil Prices

June 1st, 2006 2:00 PM


CBS Reports Chavezs Push for Higher Oil Prices
Other networks ignore story, continuing pattern of media apathy on South Americas socialist oil giant.

By Ken Shepherd
Business & Media Institute
June 1, 2006

     The leader of the third largest oil supplier to the United States wants the petroleum cartel to rig the price of oil by cutting back on production. That greedy fat cat? Venezuelas socialist president Hugo Chavez.

     At the June 1 meeting of OPEC in Caracas, Chavez is expected to continue pushing higher prices by calling for cutbacks in production, correspondent Trish Regan reported on the May 31 CBS Evening News. Rival programs Nightly News on NBC and ABCs World News Tonight left the story out of their newscasts.

     While Chavezs push to cut production failed, his designs on the windfall oil revenues for his socialistic regime is far from a one-day story.

     The Business & Media Institute has noted before how the media have ignored or downplayed Chavezs saber-rattling, including his use of oil profits to fund socialist presidential candidates in South America, how Chavez withdrew his state-owned oil companys American subsidiary Citgo from oversight by the SEC, and how Venezuelan oil profits have been directed by Chavez towards beefing up his military.