Two companies make money at the same business, but one is called "Goliath" and tied to consumers’ "pain," while the other is the site of a happy "rags-to-riches story" when its jobs are boosted – by rising consumer prices. What are the differences between a hated oil company and a beloved one?

     Size and money.

     This study showed a marked difference in reporting on small businesses and bigger ones, and it was obvious when it came to the oil industry.

     "Today, as the price of gas ticked higher across the country, in Atlanta, David threatened Goliath with a boycott," declared CBS’s Byron Pitts on April 26. This time "David" wasn’t just the consumers – who were under the influence of an oil industry ad campaign, Pitts said, "to convince Americans their profits have nothing to do with your pain."

     This time "David" included a gas station owner, who mentioned the fat-cat image at the top of his own industry chain.

     "Why are they making so much money when everybody else is suffering – the people who are pumping the gas, us as station owners, the consumer themselves?" the station owner said. "Everybody’s paying that high price so somebody could get big and fat on the other end."

     Pitts piled onto that imagery: "The oil industry makes no apologies. For some perspective on how big is big, ExxonMobil can make a record $41 billion in profit by the end of this year. That’s enough money to give every American man, woman and child a check for $137."

     Of course, as the Business & Media Institute has pointed out, that $41 billion didn’t go to one person getting "fat" at the top. ExxonMobil is one of the world’s largest public companies, meaning its shareholders profit when the company profits. The company has more than 2.5 million individual shareholders – and that’s before you count institutional shareholders, such as retirement plans and mutual funds, representing even more investors.

     The profits from gasoline sales don’t all go straight to ExxonMobil, either. As the American Petroleum Institute’s Rayola Dougher explained on "CNN Live" April 27, "the profits are distributed among the crude oil producers, the refiners, the distributors, the marketers. All together last year, the oil industry earned 8.5 cents on every dollar of sales. The rest of U.S. industry earned about 7.7."

     Other industries, too – like the media – have much larger profit margins than oil companies.

     Oddly enough, in the midst of anti-Big-Oil stories, ABC produced a positive story about smaller oil firms – even though they were prospering from the same higher oil and gas prices.

     "With oil prices at near-record highs, these are boom times for people in the oil business, including small-time producers scattered across the country," said Elizabeth Vargas on May 9.

     Mike Von Fremd’s report showed businessmen whose companies had suffered when prices were lower – shutting down oil wells and laying off workers. Now, the report said, they were back in business and even drilling new wells. But instead of bringing on oil critics, the story was positive.

     Covering Big Oil’s "Goliath," CBS spoke of consumers’ "pain"; for Little Oil, ABC obliged with happy "a rags-to-riches story in America’s oil patch," as Von Fremd put it.

     Pitting small businesses against big ones was a theme in the coverage, which was dominated by the big guys – 78 percent of the businessmen in the news stories. Twenty percent came from smaller firms.

     Oil wasn’t the only industry journalists cast in a "David versus Goliath" storyline. In fantasy baseball, the little guy should be able to play … but what about the cost to the big guy?

     "Charlie Wiegert runs a St. Louis-based Internet game company that’s now locked in a David and Goliath legal battle with MLB.com, the Internet arm of Major League Baseball," said CBS’s Anthony Mason August 7.

     MLB’s arrangement sounded clear enough – the league "pays the players’ union $10 million a year" for the players’ Internet rights, Mason said, and then in turn licenses those rights to other sites for a fee. But fantasy leaguers like Wiegert apparently didn’t think they should have to pay.

     Wiegert insisted "to them this is about money and about how much money they can make and controlling everything." Another fantasy leaguer interviewed by CBS said, "I think Major League Baseball’s trying to make an extra buck."

     In business, as this report shows, the negativity in stories often comes from "trying to make an extra buck."

     But who decides when a buck becomes "extra"?

     Economist and BMI adviser Walter Williams has explained that "profits are misunderstood, seen as unearned and sometimes condemned as evil." That could apply to media coverage, where the role of money is often maligned. Williams said it is important to remember that profits are a price in the marketplace.

     Profits keep them in business – and that sustains jobs, investments, insurance payments, utility consumption, and all those other pieces of the economy to which each employer – and employee – contributes.

ow the media had been covering manufacturing.

     When CBS’s Trish Regan asked Owens, "What surprises you the most about how Americans perceive manufacturing here in the U.S.?" he responded: "I guess it surprises me that Americans think somehow we’re losing."

     Regan then explained, "We’re not. Last year America produced $1.79 trillion worth of goods, almost twice as much as second-place Japan." She credited a "steady increase in worker productivity."

     Another positive story wasn’t as surprising – as media coverage showed disdain for businesses’ bottom-line focus, CBS appreciated one businessman who set that concern aside once a week.

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