Sounding like a broken record, the media again are squawking about
record profits for oil companies in light of a new round of
congressional hearings on oil and gas prices.
Both CBS and NBCs evening newscasts for March 14 noted
congressional attacks on record oil industry profits. CBS Evening
News also reported that oil companies are eager to reinvest profits
into drilling leases in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, if only Congress
will let them. CBS interviewed a left-leaning interest group that
opposes the drilling, but the network skipped the groups calls for
a tax on oil company profits.
NBCs Chip Reid subtly suggested oil company executives
are a patently dishonest bunch. Unlike the last time they testified
before Congress, today the nation's top oil executives had to swear
to tell the truth to frustrated senators who are getting an earful
from constituents, said Reid as he opened his story on the March 14
before mentioning that gas prices on average have gone up 11 cents
in the past two weeks.
The NBC correspondent put oil executives on the
defensive against a liberal Democratic senator and moderate Ohio
Republican Sen. Mike DeWine. Reid quoted DeWine charging that there
is something wrong when they are paying record prices at the pump
while oil companies are making record profits.
Yet while Reid worried about Big Oil profit margins,
his own employer enjoyed a profit margin higher than most American
oil companies, according to data from CNN.com. General Electric
(NYSE: GE),
the company which owns Reids network, outpaced most major oil
companies with a profit margin of 11.05 percent. Of the major oil
companies, only Exxon-Mobil (NYSE:
XOM)
outpaced GE with a profit margin of 12.60 percent. Chevron (NYSE:
CVX),
ConocoPhillips (NYSE:
COP),
and BP (NYSE:
BP)
with 7.62, 8.33, and 8.96 percents respectively.
Nowhere in his story did Reid include an economist to
explain how tight supply and heavy international demand for oil are
driving up prices, nor did Reid explain that prices are not at a
record high when factoring in inflation, as the Business & Media Institute
has
previously
documented.
The CBS Evening News devoted only a few sentences to
the congressional hearing as anchor Bob Schieffer announced that
America's top oil company executives were in the hot seat on
Capitol Hill today. They were asked to defend last year's record
profits of $112 billion. Schieffer added that Congress is
considering legislation to curb industry practices they say reduce
competition and keep prices high.
Unlike NBC, however, the Evening News also hinted at
federal regulation as a cause of high energy prices.
Stuart Strife, Anadarko's head of exploration, knows
where the next big reserves are. But he can't cross an invisible
line east of this platform, reporter Jim Acosta informed viewers in
his March 14 Evening News story. It's where the state of
Florida's political clout kicks in and drilling stops, a zone where
geologists believe there's more oil and natural gas than in all of
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
On camera Strife informed Acosta that he believed a two
million-acre sized lease sale could provide enough energy to heat
10 million homes for a six to 10-year time frame.
Yet Acosta went on to list his story leftward as he
concluded that the test for Florida's power players [is] to
convince either Congress or the White House that oil and these
waters don't mix, Acosta said, concluding his story.
Before reaching this conclusion, Acosta presented a
representative from the Florida chapter of Ralph Naders U.S. Public
Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG) as a concerned environmentalist
working to preserve Floridas pristine resort coastline. Acosta did
not inform viewers that the U.S. PIRG has been a
vocal critic of oil industry windfall profits, and urged
Congress in
September 2005 to immediately enact a windfall profits tax on
oil that will recoup a portion of the oil industrys record
profits.
Media Drill Big Oil Again on Record Profits
March 15th, 2006 2:00 PM
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