CBS Alarmed at Teens Addicted to... Coffee?

June 21st, 2006 5:08 PM

You know the media are overreaching when they start to portray teenagers hunkered over schoolbooks while downing iced lattes at a coffee shop as an alarming thing:

For my full story, click here. For a similar item on the biased coverage ABC brewed up just two days earlier, click here.

The kids aren’t alright. An epidemic is sweeping the nation as teenagers down the addictive brew by the pint. Underage alcohol consumption? No, coffee.

As anti-food industry advocacy groups like Center for Science in the Public Interest sharpen their legal knives against Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX), the media are brewing up alarmist reports on teenage caffeine consumption.

CBS’s “Early Show” followed ABC’s lead from two days ago. That network’s June 19 edition of “Good Morning America” presented Starbucks like a drug pusher preying on young addicts.

“Coffee has always been considered an adult drink, but today coffee drinkers are much, much younger,” noted CBS’s Julie Chen as she introduced the story on the June 21 “Early Show.” But “many teens are making coffee a daily ritual, and that’s raising concern among health experts,” the morning show co-anchor warned as she introduced a story by correspondent Susan McGinnis.