The radical left is after Big Oil again, and so is CNN. The April 11 “American Morning” business segment had anchor Miles O’Brien echoing a congressman’s attack on the oil industry. “A congressional chairman flexes his muscle with Big Oil over the skyrocketing price of gas and we say: Go to it!”
That one-sided cheer was followed by reporter Ali Velshi describing a letter from liberal Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee, to seven major oil companies. Kucinich wrote “asking them a question we would like an answer to – explaining the high price of gas,” explained Velshi.
Kucinich, who has a lifetime liberal rating of 90 out 100 with Americans for Democratic Action, also previously sponsored a windfall profits tax on oil companies, but that was left out of the story.
The report mirrored part of Kucinich’s press release about the letter. And, in a similar manner, it didn’t include any feedback from the oil industry. Velshi went on to tell viewers that “Gas is now at $2.79 a gallon” and that “people in California were looking at $3.24.”
He cited the letter to show that excess refining capacity had dropped in California but didn’t explain other factors behind that state’s higher prices. The Business & Media Institute previously looked at the high price of gas in the Golden state and found the reasons the media ignore – higher taxes and more regulation.
Instead, Velshi referred back to Kucinich’s questions of the oil companies and said, “We will be eager to hear what those responses are.”
Only at the end of the report did the morning team answer part of the question. O’Brien said: “no one wants a refinery in their back yard.” Velshi added: “They're dirty, they’re hard to get approval for, but they are – and they're expensive, but we got to do something. We got to use less gasoline or build more refineries.”
