It’s like clockwork. Gas prices have fallen, and so has network news coverage of them. This direct correlation between prices and coverage has caused news of gas prices to essentially disappear in the past week.

The latest Lundberg Survey of fuel prices, released on July 12, showed that gas prices have fallen more than 10 cents over the past two weeks. However, in keeping with the warped coverage of gas prices, the largest drop in prices since December went unreported by all major network morning shows except NBC’s “Today Show”, and even this was hidden away in the hourly news reports.

Perhaps Americans have lost interest in gas prices, and therefore networks now fail to find the topic newsworthy. If that’s the case, the public must have changed its mind since mid-June when, with prices on the rise, coverage was extensive.

This may be the beginning of a new summer, but one thing that isn’t new is the rise in gas prices. The average price for a gallon of gas is around $2.60, but though many in the media complain, they missed a big chance to talk about solutions.

On CNBC’s June 10 “Larry Kudlow Report,” Larry Kudlow hosted Indiana Rep. Mike Pence to discuss possible measures that might help lower gas prices – including a new GOP energy plan. But ABC’s “World New with Charles Gibson” and CBS’s “Evening News” instead focused on how gas prices were hurting Americans, and left out the bit about a new Republican plan to lower energy costs.

Offering a defense of President Obama’s decision to close Guantanamo Bay within the year, on Thursday’s CBS Evening News, correspondent David Martin argued: "During his final years in office, President Bush said repeatedly he wanted to close the prison at Guantanamo, where suspected terrorists were being held indefinitely without trial. Turns out it was his own vice president who stood in the way."

Martin worked to discredit Dick Cheney’s concerns about closing the detention facility: "According to Cheney, 61 of the 530 prisoners released from Guantanamo during the Bush administration have already gone back to terrorism. According to the Defense Intelligence Agency, there are 61 suspected cases of former detainees rejoining the fight, but so far only 18 have been confirmed." Martin then admitted: "Most have subsequently been killed or captured; but some, like this suicide bomber in Iraq, lived long enough to kill again."

On PBS's Web site today, ombudsman Michael Getler writes of complaints over an incident during last Sunday's pledge drive.  He describes the cheap shot taken by actor Mike Farrell against vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin:

According to Joseph Campbell, vice president of fundraising programs, here's what happened:

On The Situation Room today, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer made a surprising admission to, of all people, real estate entrepreneur Donald Trump:

BLITZER: What do you think of his (Obama's) decision to pick Joe Biden as his running mate?

TRUMP: I really don't know Senator Biden but I know one thing. He's run a number of times for president. He's gotten less than 1 percent of the vote each time. And that's a pretty tough thing. You know, he's also been involved in pretty big controversy like plagiarism in college and various other things. That's a pretty big statement. So perhaps you change over a period of time. But when you plagiarize, that's a very bad statement. That hasn't been brought up yet, but I'm sure at some point it will. I'm sure that Sarah Palin will bring it up in a debate or somebody's going to bring it up.

BLITZER: Are you talking about plagiarism when he was running for president?

TRUMP: No, I'm talking about when he was a college student as I understand it, and this was a big issue originally but he supposedly plagiarized as a college student. That's a pretty serious charge.

BLITZER: I don't remember that. We'll check it out. But maybe you obviously have a better memory about that.

 On CNN's American Morning today, White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux reported on Barack Obama's campaigning in Virginia.  Afterwards, anchor Kiran Chetry had a question:

CHETRY: All right. And Suzanne, what's on tap for the campaign today? And please tell me it's not lipstick again.

MALVEAUX: Let's hope not. He's going to be in Norfolk, Virginia. That is in southeast Virginia, and it's home to the world's largest Naval base. It's one of the most competitive areas that the Democrats and Republicans are fighting over. It's a critical piece of property, piece of land there with folks in Virginia, and they want those voters.

According to Marc Ambinder of theatlantic.com, former ABC News Capitol Hill correspondent Linda Douglass, also a former correspondent for CBS and NBC News, will be leaving her position at National Journal to join the Barack Obama presidential campaign as a senior strategist. Ambinder quotes Douglass: "I see this as a moment of transformational change in the country and I have spent my lifetime sitting on the sidelines watching people attempt to make change. I just decided that I can't sit on the sidelines anymore."

Ambinder's article, which can be seen here, further describes Douglass as having grown "disillusioned with the partisanship she saw first hand" during her journalistic career.

Christmas is still nearly seven weeks away, and already the media are offering a “Bah, Humbug” for retail sales and the U.S. economy.

CNN shoveled coal at the positive economic news on November 2 and immediately moved into full Grinch mode.

“You know, just earlier this week the broadest measure of the economy, Kyra, the GDP, came in at 3.9 percent, stronger than expected. What’s working against it, though, the financials, concerns that we’re going to have a lot more carnage coming from that very important sector, consumer spending …” said “Newsroom” correspondent Susan Lisovicz.

On September 24 of this year, Alexis Christoforous of “CBS Morning News” warned, “It could be a blue Christmas for many of the nation’s retailers.”

See YouTube video after the jump.

No matter what the housing market does – whether it trends upward or trends downward – either way, it is bad for economy.

That’s the CBS take on the economy anyway. “The prices of homes are falling and there is more evidence tonight that those counting on their houses as their nest eggs may be in trouble,” said Russ Mitchell on the August 26 “Evening News.”