ABC's Farnham: 2008 Was Last Time U.S. 'Saw' $4-a-Gallon Gas

By Tom Blumer | February 14, 2012 | 10:53

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Everybody, including yours truly, makes mistakes. But a major news organization should be able to catch whoppers like the ones readers will see shortly, or at least fix them in short order if they get posted.

A Google search on the title of an ABC report on gas prices ("Bumpy Ride Ahead: Gas Prices May Soon Hit $4 a Gallon") at about 8:10 a.m. ET indicates that the story went up at about 6 p.m. last night, so the pathetic verbiage readers will see after the jump has gone unrepaired for 15 hours, and counting:

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ABCon4dollarGas021312

Lord have mercy.

Obviously, the gas price changes cited should be expressed as cents per gallon. They are listed in dollars per gallon at the original source. ABC's Alan Farnham didn't have the math sense to express the changes in cents, and instead ignorantly expressed them as percentages.

More egregiously, Farnham acts as if last year's gas price spike to over $4 a gallon in many parts of the country never happened (i.e., that no one "saw" it), thereby (how convenient) giving readers the impression that prices haven't been "seen" at that level anywhere in the U.S. since the eeeeevil George W. Bush occupied the White House.

Earth to Alan: I "saw" them last spring, less than a year ago, and millions of others all over the Midwest and in many other parts of the country "saw" them too. Prices more than "flirted" with $4; they went all the way, and then some. Some examples obtained from the charts section at cincygasprices.com (graphic here) include the following: Chicago - $4.52; New York - $4.29; Los Angeles - $4.29; Cincinnati - $4.18. There are enough examples showing prices hitting well over $4 a gallon to make one wonder if the U.S. Energy Information Administration is appropriately weighting its reported averages. (There's a story for you, Alan; but please, for everyone's sake, make sure someone checks your work.)

If he wanted to be accurate while protecting the administration, Farnham should have written that "average U.S. gas prices haven't hit $4 a gallon since 2008" (the related gasprices.com chart shows a peak of $3.97 on about May 11). But he didn't. Instead he wrote a woefully sloppy and inaccurate story -- and the ABC reporter and his editors don't seem to care enough to want to fix it.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

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Comments

Why would the All Barack Channel care about accuracy?

Submitted by frank14 on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 10:59am.

They have a re-election to win!

You don't get it, Tom

Submitted by DontFeedTheTrolls on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 11:07am.

When Bush was President, gas prices went up to enrich his cronies in Big Oil and 'in the know' insiders, now that Obama is in charge, those people are too scared to make money for fear Obama will catch them and take it away!

Americans keeping their own earnings is a Civil Right! Demand your Civil Rights!

DFTT

Submitted by Tugboat Phil on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 1:35pm.

Also when Bush was in office, our local TV stations went to gas pumps just about every day to stir the pot. It wasn't as thought we all didn't realize they were rising, but it was run as news.

Since the current price spike started, hardly a mention. They're probably deciding how to spin $4/gal being a great thing.

EDIT *** I just heard on the radio. He's saying that rapidly rising gasoline prices mean the economy is coming back.

President Obama is a Muslim (from his own lips), Kenyan (read it from his publicist) a homosexual (read it on a news magazine cover) and a Socialist (I'm alive and can see it for myself)

Just another way for them to SCREAM.....

Submitted by OldJarhead77 on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 1:52pm.

ITS BUSH'S FAULT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! These clowns won't take responsibility for anything they did or anything they do! I say we envoke the Treason law.. Round them all up and put them on trail for just that TREASON!

Liberals: No Morals, No Standards, NO Problem!

Some places hit $5 dollars.

Submitted by NeoKong on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 11:09am.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/04/20/5-gas-hits-connecticut-6-plus-pre...

"At first you might have thought your eyes were playing tricks on you, but they weren’t. Gas prices hit $4.99 for premium in Stamford on Wednesday, reports CBS 2’s Scott Rapoport."

Follow me on Twitter

The power of suggestion

Submitted by Galvanic on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 12:40pm.

If they repeat a lie often enough, some people will believe it.

On Morning Joe today, I heard MSNBC's Chuck Todd say that the Democrats have been trying to terminate the "Bush tax cuts" for 8 years, disregarding the fact that the Democratic Congress and Obama extended those cuts back in 2010.

Note, too, that while they should more properly be labeled "the Obama Tax Cuts" (and he does take credit for them when he brags about cutting taxes on the middle class), they are always referred to by the Left and their MSM echoes as the Bush tax cuts.

If the Ministry of Truth says so....

Submitted by almostacowboy on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 11:29am.

then it must be true.

The three slogans of the Democrat Party: "WAR IS PEACE," "FREEDOM IS SLAVERY," "IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH."

Orwell...

Submitted by Kuso Jiji on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 11:33am.

...got everything right but the year!!!

The First Sign...

Submitted by tvhall on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 11:31am.

Of a moron is the inability to deal with numbers and an unwillingness to convert them to usable terms for an audiance. People of the left are members of this group (that is stupit) or so hopelessly deluded that they must torture, contort and prevericate any set of facts to meet their stuborn preconcieved notions.

***************************************************************************************** T.V. I love my country, it's my government I don't trust.

What is there to "fix"?

Submitted by Ashrak on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 12:10pm.

It is already "fixed" - to the liking of those who want to LIE day in and day out.

Luckily, the folks are out hunting their own information so much that ISP's are passing on the "throttling".

Anyone else find it interesting that Barry used a "throttle" analogy, of course out of the blue, today?

The most transparent administration ever. Government AND media, bound at the hip, and we can see right through it's lies.

That an individual right exists requires that some policy positions be removed from the table of debate.

Does anyone watch ABC?

Submitted by Soldat44 on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 12:18pm.

Does anyone watch ABC? (checking polls...)

'One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church'

Looks pretty grim for

Submitted by Soldat44 on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 12:20pm.

Looks pretty grim for ABC...

http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/top10s/television.html

'One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church'

You Are A Liberal If...

Submitted by HardRightTurn on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 12:20pm.

You know the difference between the truth and a lie, but choose to tell a lie anyway.

To more fully comprehend the Left, one must read “Leftism As Psychopathy” by John Ray, M.A., Ph.D. Caution, it might scare you a little bit.
http://jonjayray.tripod.com/psycho.html

Actually

Submitted by compguytracy on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 12:56pm.

Didn't odumbo say 4 gas would be good for everyone to use less fossil fuel?

"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?" Orwell, 1984

Ceteris paribus

Who controls the prices?

Submitted by wingnut55 on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 2:42pm.

In 2008 when the price of gas was $4 a gallon, the Republicans were in power and OPEC wanted someone else in power. So, they raised the price of oil. When the Democrats got into power the price came down. The Arab nations know that Democrats are more tolerant of their practices than the Republicans. So, they try to control our elections with the price of oil. It continues to happen as the years go on. It is not BIG OIL it is the country that control our oil. We need to drill here and we need to drill NOW!!!

Where the heck is Unsane when

Submitted by mandrake on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 2:50pm.

Where the heck is Unsane when you need him?

speaking of 2008, foreshadowing Solyndra and the Volt

Submitted by mom_rox on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 3:38pm.

remember what US Senator Barack Obama said to CNBC's John Harwood?

JOHN HARWOOD: As you know, gas prices now have hit a national average of over $4 a gallon. You have criticized the idea that John McCain has floated of a gas tax holiday as a gimmick. Is the reality of the situation for American consumers that there's nothing that you could do as president or anybody could do as president in the short term to relieve that pain?

Sen. BARACK OBAMA: What is true is that given the global price of oil right now, that we can't artificially lower gas prices. What we can do is provide people immediate relief through our tax code. And so I've proposed accelerating a second stimulus rebate to put hundreds of dollars into the pockets of families to offset some of these rising costs during the summer and into the fall. When I'm president next year, what I'd like to do is pass a middle class tax cut, $1,000 per family per year to offset higher prices in gas, food, medical care. Long-term, though, the only way we're going to deal with these high gas prices is if we change how we consume oil. And that means investing in alternative fuels, it means that we are raising fuel efficiency standards on cars, that we're helping the automakers retool. Obviously, consumers are changing their habits pretty rapidly. But our US automakers are going to need some help retooling. We should be encouraging that. And when we look at other ways that we're using energy, we have to adapt renewable, clear energies like solar, wind and biodiesel. And I've got an Apollo project, a Manhattan project, to embark upon that new energy future that we need.

...

HARWOOD: So could these high prices help us?

Sen. OBAMA: I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment. The fact that this is such a shock to American pocketbooks is not a good thing. But if we take some steps right now to help people make the adjustment, first of all by putting more money into their pockets, but also by encouraging the market to adapt to these new circumstances more quickly, particularly US automakers, then I think ultimately, we can come out of this stronger and have a more efficient energy policy than we do right now.

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