Gas Hysteria
Oil Prices Drop and Networks Ignore It
Continuing the media trend of ignoring positive economic news and highlighting negative news, the networks bypassed a huge decline in the price of oil.

     The media continue to overplay the gas price story. Yesterday, oil prices plummeted to their lowest level in two weeks. None of the three major networks noted this development.

     Here are some of the latest high and low points:

• Oil price drops: CBSMarketwatch.com noted something the networks ignored: “At the same time, crude prices tapped a low under the $63-a-barrel mark for the first time in two weeks then recovered to close nearly flat for the session.” After the oil price crisis coverage of the previous day, the absence of this story was certainly telling.
   
• Liberal hypocrisy: Left-winger Robert Kennedy Jr., called an “ardent environmentalist” by NBC’s “Nightly News,” is stuck battling “clean” energy – a windmill farm off the coast of Nantucket. Anne Thompson’s Aug. 17 story showed how environmentalists are battling it out against one another because some don’t want the windmills messing up their expensive coastal views. According to Thompson: “But Kennedy, who supports wind power, says it should no more be here inside his family's compound than inside Yosemite or Central Park.” Kennedy didn’t care that Nantucket is an ideal location because the off-shore area is windy and shallow enough to build the towers.
   
• More ‘Pain at the Pump’: NBC continued its part increasing fears of gas prices on Aug. 17, pumping up the terror of high prices by showing people desperate to find lower gas prices “at a time when pain is guaranteed,” according to reporter Mike Taibbi. The report included a customer saying you have to take out a loan just to get gasoline. The highlight of the broadcast was a clip of customers so angry that they were screaming and cursing one another. Said Taibbi, “It’s getting nasty out there.”