It’s fascinating when the media continue to report stories that aren’t true. For example, gasoline prices started a colossal drop in prices towards the end of last year, a decline that continued until right near the end of January, perhaps even into February based on visual observations at the pump.
This created tremendous good cheer around the world. Twitter exploded with photos of people putting 30 gallons into 50-foot-long SUVs for under $70, the owners taking selfies with smiles like they’d just ingested their favorite meal five nights in a row.
Falling gasoline prices were good for the consumer. It made most people happy. Because that’s a “feel good” story, it seems the media decided to keep reporting it from that angle, even though prices started to rise again.
Part of the reason stories didn’t flex and recognize the change is that angles were starting to come up about the “bad” things associated with the oil price drop. Jobs were lost. The men and women working in oil fields around the U.S. got laid off. This made for more news.
So the drop in prices had multiple angles – good and bad news. A piece of economic news is not a monolithic entity. It’s more like an octopus with multiple tentacles that reach out in different directions, expanding, contracting, squeezing things and then releasing them.
Falling prices gave radio stations, TV news, the Internet, Twitter, newspapers and magazines the opportunity to light it up with good stories. Then they dig deeper and tell about the layoffs due to the lower prices.
So when prices began to rise again, as we ALL KNEW they would (come on people, who are we kidding; oil is a finite resource; no matter how much you think there is in the earth, the supply is not limitless and our demand keeps going up with world population), the media either went into denial or chose to stick with the fun angle of low prices. For some reason, they wanted to stay in a fantasy world.
Maybe they wanted us to believe the fantasy. The reality was visible at the pump. Day-to-day, the price crept up. From as low as $1.49 to $1.59 to $1.69, then a pause, then five cents more and another five cents.
It didn’t take long before the price almost anywhere at the pump in the U.S. was back over $2 per gallon. That’s not necessarily bad or good, but it is a story, and it wasn’t being reported.
Instead, as if to make us not believe what we as consumers couldn’t see right in front of our eyes, they kept writing and talking about “falling oil prices.” Not so, folks.
Reporting does not reflect reality. Just watch the weather person on TV one night to confirm that. S/he’ll tell you it’s raining in your town, and you look outside the window of your home and it’s not. Who got that right? Reality or the newscaster?
These types of situations have to make us all wonder who effectively reports events around the world. Does a news story give a close approximation of what occurred? Is the story timely, or has it fallen behind a trend (as the case was with the price of gasoline)?
We rely heavily on the media to report with accuracy. When we read and see that it can’t effectively track gasoline prices over a three-week period, you have to wonder what else we need to question.
Today, my wife said the price dropped at Costco. We can probably count on the media reporting the new rise in prices instead. Buckle in for the ride, folks.
This created tremendous good cheer around the world. Twitter exploded with photos of people putting 30 gallons into 50-foot-long SUVs for under $70, the owners taking selfies with smiles like they’d just ingested their favorite meal five nights in a row.
Falling gasoline prices were good for the consumer. It made most people happy. Because that’s a “feel good” story, it seems the media decided to keep reporting it from that angle, even though prices started to rise again.
Part of the reason stories didn’t flex and recognize the change is that angles were starting to come up about the “bad” things associated with the oil price drop. Jobs were lost. The men and women working in oil fields around the U.S. got laid off. This made for more news.
So the drop in prices had multiple angles – good and bad news. A piece of economic news is not a monolithic entity. It’s more like an octopus with multiple tentacles that reach out in different directions, expanding, contracting, squeezing things and then releasing them.
Falling prices gave radio stations, TV news, the Internet, Twitter, newspapers and magazines the opportunity to light it up with good stories. Then they dig deeper and tell about the layoffs due to the lower prices.
So when prices began to rise again, as we ALL KNEW they would (come on people, who are we kidding; oil is a finite resource; no matter how much you think there is in the earth, the supply is not limitless and our demand keeps going up with world population), the media either went into denial or chose to stick with the fun angle of low prices. For some reason, they wanted to stay in a fantasy world.
Maybe they wanted us to believe the fantasy. The reality was visible at the pump. Day-to-day, the price crept up. From as low as $1.49 to $1.59 to $1.69, then a pause, then five cents more and another five cents.
It didn’t take long before the price almost anywhere at the pump in the U.S. was back over $2 per gallon. That’s not necessarily bad or good, but it is a story, and it wasn’t being reported.
Instead, as if to make us not believe what we as consumers couldn’t see right in front of our eyes, they kept writing and talking about “falling oil prices.” Not so, folks.
Reporting does not reflect reality. Just watch the weather person on TV one night to confirm that. S/he’ll tell you it’s raining in your town, and you look outside the window of your home and it’s not. Who got that right? Reality or the newscaster?
These types of situations have to make us all wonder who effectively reports events around the world. Does a news story give a close approximation of what occurred? Is the story timely, or has it fallen behind a trend (as the case was with the price of gasoline)?
We rely heavily on the media to report with accuracy. When we read and see that it can’t effectively track gasoline prices over a three-week period, you have to wonder what else we need to question.
Today, my wife said the price dropped at Costco. We can probably count on the media reporting the new rise in prices instead. Buckle in for the ride, folks.