Oil & Gas Prices

Beginning on September 15 and continuing through the 19th, "Good Morning America" has been touring America via train and finding economic misery and despair along the way. During the three special shows that have aired so far, which ABC has dubbed the "Whistle-Stop Tour '08," the program traveled to struggling towns in Massachusetts, Ohio and New York. On Monday, while talking with an elderly man…

When Andrea Mitchell says "all of us" thought a certain way, whom does she have in mind?On her  MSBNC show this afternoon, Mitchell stated that "all of us" originally thought John McCain had made a political mistake when he changed positions and came out of in favor of expanded oil drilling.  Mitchell was chatting with former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers and Republican strategist Doug…

Chris Matthews spent most of Monday night's "Hardball," laying out a blueprint for how Barack Obama can hit John McCain on the economy, as he compared the GOP presidential nominee to Herbert Hoover.Opening the September 15 show, Matthews greeted viewers with the following teaser:CHRIS MATTHEWS: Why is John McCain talking like Herbert Hoover? Depression or just depressing? Let's play "Hardball…

You would never associate sex and drugs with crude oil - but politically, the Democratic Party might try. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., appeared in an interview on CNBC's September 11 "Power Lunch" the day after it was revealed that federal investigators discovered an Interior Department group overseeing the collection of oil and natural gas royalties improperly had sex with subordinates and…

CBS's Katie Couric on Wednesday night used an Interior Department sex and drug scandal to snidely frame a story around how “the Bush administration has long been accused of having too close a relationship with the oil industry. Just how close is documented in new reports just out today.” The ABC and NBC evening newscasts also ran full stories on three new reports from the Interior Department's…

"Good Morning America" on Monday featured liberal New York Times columnist Tom Friedman as an energy expert to "fact check" John McCain's policies on the subject and advocate for higher taxes. GMA co-host Diane Sawyer never referred to Friedman's economic policies as liberal, despite the fact that he repeatedly made assertions such as this: "But, you know, there's really no effective plan to make…

Sex sells, even during a presidential election. But that doesn't mean journalists have to be happy about it. CNBC's "Squawk Box" co-host Joe Kernen took a moment during a panel discussion September 2 to take a shot at the onslaught of coverage over presumptive vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's daughter's pregnancy. You know as a member of the media I'm just kind of embarrassed with…

If you break the terms of a contract, you should be expected to pay a penalty, right? Not according to ABC's "Good Morning America." "Good Morning America" criticized fees charged to customers who return rental cars without a full tank of gas - part of a standard car rental agreement. "The only thing more expensive than gassing up your car these days is not gassing up your rental car,"…

While a lot of the members of the mainstream media were scratching their heads, trying to figure out just who Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was, CNBC actually came through with an almost immediate positive response. The August 29 broadcast of CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" featured two of the network's prominent personalities analyzing Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain's choice of a…

In case traditional news outlets "forget" to tell you, Uncle Sam announced this morning that second-quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth was revised sharply upward to 3.3% from the late July's advance estimate of 1.9%. Dude, where's my recession? Y'know, the recession that Barack Obama claimed we "almost certainly in" back in mid-July? Believe it or not, there are supposedly legitimate…

Is there an echo in here? Nope, just another attack on oil companies in the months leading up to an election. Former president Jimmy Carter told Harry Smith on CBS's "The Early Show" August 27 that he predicted "oil companies will hold down oil prices a little bit, you know, to try to help the Republican ticket." Carter also said that the economy would be the most important issue, "as it…

Partly because this story doesn't fit preconceived liberal storylines and partly because the Democratic Convention is taking up all the oxygen in the mainstream media, you can expect this story to remain buried in your newspaper and be given little if any attention on cable news networks.From page 17 of today's Financial Times, "US drillers to get $1bn court award" comes news of how federal…

So if a government program has been failing for decades, should you A) Privatize it, B) Get rid of it altogether, or C) Throw millions of dollars at it and hope that Americas somehow feel compelled to reenact scenes from "Some Like it Hot." The answer is C if you were watching CNN this morning. "American Morning" pointed out that high gas prices were the reason ridership on Amtrak was up…