Broadcasters turn news into 24-hour speculation cycle about $5 per gallon post-hurricane gas prices.

Broadcast journalists have been the only ones bidding up gas prices lately. While they foretell a horizon of $4 and $5 gas, consumers on U.S. streets are paying an average of $2.81 – up just 6 cents since hurricane Rita.

ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and Fox News all covered the constant speculation about Gulf refinery damage and subsequent gas price spikes before and after Hurricane Rita’s September 24 impact. CNN used its 24 hours each day to raise fears about higher gas prices with show after show. A Nexis search of CNN transcripts around Rita’s landfall (from September 21 to 25) showed more than 20 mentions of the possibility of $4 or $5 gas from at least 12 different reporters in just five days on that network.

A few days ago New York Times writer Ned Martel wrote an article called Manna from Hollywood: Charity Begins on TV about NBC’s new Friday night television show Three Wishes hosted by Grammy award winning singer Amy Grant

As I began to read Martel’s critique of the show I was amazed to see that Martel took issue with a show that was designed to help people. To begin with Martel begins by characterizing the whole idea of the show and how it is presented as a “traveling ministry, with revival tents pitched in a different small town every week”, thereby insulting any and everyone who has ever attended a revival meeting of some sort.

Shortly after the indictment of Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex) was announced, CBS News’ Gloria Borger did a report on the possible impact of this incident on the current and future political landscape. Borger made it quite clear that this was very bad news for George W. Bush as well as House Republicans while suggesting that this will put more seats in play in the upcoming mid-term elections. Borger also referred to questions surrounding Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn), as well as Karl Rove, suggesting that this adds to the Democrat talking point of “Abuse of Power.” And, she managed to bring up the president’s sinking poll numbers as well.

What follows is a full transcript of this report and a video link.

ABC's new Commander in Chief drama, which debuted Tuesday night, clearly intends to make the conservative Republican “House Speaker Nathan Templeton,” played by Donald Sutherland, the foil on the show revolving around Geena Davis as “President Mackenzie Allen.” On the debut, Republican “President Teddy Roosevelt Bridges” dies of an aneurysm, but before he does so he asks VP Allen, an independent with more liberal views, to resign so the Speaker can become President since he "shares my vision." Allen plans to do so, enraging her chief aide who declares of Templeton: “This guy makes Genghis Khan look like Mahatma Gandhi.” And he warns that a Templeton presidency would mean “the return of book-burning, creationism in the classroom, invading every third world country."

During a meeting with Allen, who is on a quest to save a Nigerian woman sentenced to death by stoning for having a baby outside of marriage, Templeton enrages Allen by deriding the woman as “the adulteress” and “a lady who couldn't keep her legs together." (As if that's how conservatives view the plight of women in the world.) Templeton's buffoonery prompts Allen to fold up the draft of her resignation letter -- and thus make the theme of the TV series, a woman President, occur. Sutherland is a leading character on the show and the preview of next week's episode suggests that he will “sabotage” Allen's VP pick.

Fuller transcripts follow.

The Reuters Global Managing Editor, David Schlesinger, sent a letter to Republican Senator John Warner, who chairs the Armed Services Committee.

Reuters reports on its own actions:

The letter from Reuters Global Managing Editor David Schlesinger called on Warner to raise widespread media concerns about the conduct of U.S. troops with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who is due to testify to the committee on Thursday.

Schlesinger referred to "a long parade of disturbing incidents whereby professional journalists have been killed, wrongfully detained, and/or illegally abused by U.S. forces in Iraq."

He urged Warner to demand that Rumsfeld resolve these issues "in a way that best balances the legitimate security interests of the U.S. forces in Iraq and the equally legitimate rights of journalists in conflict zones under international law"...

Ronnie Earle is the district attorney for Travis County, Texas and is responsible for today's indictment of Tom DeLay for money laundering.

The Houston Chronicle reported in May:

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, who denies partisan motives for his investigation of a political group founded by Republican leader Tom DeLay, was the featured speaker last week at a Democratic fund-raiser where he spoke directly about the congressman.

A newly formed Democratic political action committee, Texas Values in Action Coalition, hosted the May 12 event in Dallas to raise campaign money to take control of the state Legislature from the GOP, organizers said.

Earle, an elected Democrat, helped generate $102,000 for the organization.

Brent Bozell tackled the problem of Tom DeLay bias in a column in April, especially on the way the media love to put the cart in front of the horse on ethics cases. Here was one of their unwritten rules:

Speculate like crazy, for the Death Watch is on. NBC highlighted how "some Republicans" are wondering if DeLay is harming the party, and maybe he’ll have a tougher re-election fight. This isn’t the reporting of today’s news. It’s an attempt to influence the next day’s news. On this count, at least CBS noted that even Democrats assume he’s not going anywhere soon. But too much political news is trying to set the stage for what’s next, and too little is based on what’s already established.

Yesterday the New York Times went all out on a memo that they said was written by John Roberts, echoed by the media establishment, saying "John Roberts shows deep hositility toward the press."

The critique was vigorous, brilliantly written and informed by a deep hostility toward the press, said Anthony Lewis, the author of "Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment" and a former columnist for The New York Times. "It's quite an astonishing document," Mr. Lewis said of the critique. "He's not a fan of the press. He speaks of 'the zeal and insouciance with which the mass media assails public officials.' " The Sullivan decision, the memorandum said, overstated the social value of the press. "Any assumption that media coverage of government institutions and public officials is the centerpiece of effective democracy," Mr. Roberts wrote, "is misplaced."

There's just one problem; Roberts didn't write it. Bruce Fein, a Washington lawyer wrote the memo. Oops. On a brighter note, for Bruce Fein, the New York Times said he writes brilliantly.

How could something like this happen?

Three people quoted in the article discussed the Fein memorandum, provided to them by a reporter, on the assumption that it had been written by Judge Roberts.

And we all know that the New York Times is a major player in the assuming game.

On Monday I posted to TimesWatch.org about a review of Gretchen Wilson's newly-released album All Jacked Up, and how New York Times reviewer Jon Pareles lamented what he saw as a departure from hints of class warfare themes in Wilson's last album to the "market-tested populism" embodied in a new duet with Merle Haggard, Politically Uncorrect.

Not to be outdone, reviewer Britt Robson in her special to the Washington Post today tagged the song as "reactionary":

Wilson is both clever and credible invoking her cultural talismans and puncturing sophisticated airs. Calling motherhood a "Full Time Job" is hardly a novel concept, but it's a tonic to hear a singer fling herself into the subject with the fervor others reserve for love songs, to empathize rather than preach. "Skoal Ring" takes the tongue-in-cheek approach to a new level, as Wilson waxes about the sex appeal of a mouthful of chaw. In case you still don't get her drift, she brings on Haggard, the original Okie From Muskogee, for a vocal duet on the reactionary "Politically Uncorrect."