Dear Media. . .
I have a simple request for the national media outlets to whom we entrust our public airwaves : DO YOUR JOB!
There’s a bit of a huffle-puff brewing around Washington right now as what to do about high oil & gas prices. John McCain and most of his Republican friends want to drill offshore, assuming that new supplies would drive prices down. Barack Obama and most of his Democratic friends want to reduce consumption, assuming that less demand would drive prices down.
The media, in their infinite wisdom, are presenting the two positions as an even debate. There’s just one problem : THEY DIDN’T DO THEIR HOMEWORK!
You see, a little-known agency called the Energy Information Agency (aka the official source of energy data for the U.S. government) released a report last year that concludes the following :
The projections in the OCS access case indicate that access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030. Leasing would begin no sooner than 2012, and production would not be expected to start before 2017. [emphasis mine]
Had anyone at NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, CNN, MSNBC, etc. etc. had access to, say, Google, they might have found the same report. Instead, they report both sides as though it’s just a matter of opinion. Paper or plastic? Red wine or white? Kittens or puppies.
There was a time when they practiced this thing called journalism. . . if my memory serves me, it involved actual research instead of simply replaying sound bites. Huh. What a concept.
Filed under economics, energy, politics : Comments (0) : Aug 7th, 2008 by tadfad
