No I’m not talking about President Dubya.
There must be a bible out there for traditional media where one does not look at the whole picture. “Report on the subject matter and nothing else. Leave the math and correlation stuff to the PhDs with their ‘journals’.” This is why I think journalists make such terrible reporters. My love/hate relationship with CNN Money continues with this theory.
Steve Hargreaves set out to write an interesting piece on the price of oil. He did a great job in fact. There is speculation on whether $130 a barrel is an oil bubble. In traditional journalism style he gets arguments from both sides based on the ever present supply vs demand argument that even I have given.
But Scuba Steve neglected what may be the real cause of the oil spike when diving into “Pundit Pond”. Every major move in the price of oil has immediately followed a major move in the value of our currency. The media reports that there’s been no real change in global demand for oil (excluding the speculators). The media then reports that our dollar tanked against the Euro 30 seconds later. Why is no one making this connection? No change in actual demand so what could have caused oil to go up in price? Even President Gilligan heard it from the Saudis when kissing ass playing nice in the sand just days ago, “Oil prices are higher because we trade in your currency, and your currency sucks”, loosely translated of course. Why does this make sense to my dad, not an economist, but not to the people who report on the economy every day?
I’ll tell you why. Because the media has no incentive to give you the answer. If Brian Williams told you the price of oil has an inverse correlation with the greenback, we’d stop caring about the price of oil and stop watching Brian Williams yap his saggy eyes out! Newspapers, TV, and yes the Internet media too all have no reason to give you an answer.
This is the flaw with media today. They aren’t reporting the whole story. They pick out the interesting bits and string you along for months. We’re all suckers for it, even me. I continue to read their damned articles expecting them to make this connection. Need another example? Ummm, how about “Pant Suit Vs Chocolate Kennedy”. When will that end?
Digression, A.D.D., the killer of my generation – sorry. My point is not to burn your bras and demand better journalism. Read the articles to stay informed, but expose yourself to other perspectives and see the whole picture. There is never one explanation for a problem. Well, we could blame it on Gilligan…
 By The Weakonomist |
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