Just wanted to bring to your attention a news nugget that you may've missed last week.
I mention it because while reading this evening's Drudge Report, I noticed the headline
Gas Prices Rise to New National Record, and the story I'd seen, concerning gas prices,
came back to me.
Late last week, there was a segment on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric on the economy, full of the usual recitation of facts and anecdotes that have, in the past, made that a segment I usually tune-out. But not this time, and here's why.
I noticed that the CBS correspondent mentioned the name of the California town with a service station that charged the highest price in the country -and the price-as if that bit of info conveyed some sort of truth or perspective. But it didn't, of course.
No more so than a news segment that mentioned how expensive it was to hire (or even reserve) a really nice limo the afternoon/night of the Academy Awards in Los Angeles, or the night of all the Inaugural Balls in Washington, would tell me anything about the price of renting a car. (For the record, I've been to two Inaugural Balls.)
Note to future self - have the Studio pay for my limo ride to the Kodak Theatre!
Fortunately for me, a few days before I saw the CBS story, I'd seen an even-handed report elsewhere that mentioned that this particular service station in California is the ONLY place to get gas for FORTY MILES in any direction.
Oh, now that's some perspective I can actually use!
Wanna bet that they charge a lot more for their cans of Coke and bags of ice and cigarettes, too?
On the other hand, the person who owns the service station in that town and presumably lives there -lives there!
I'm guessing that community is bereft of the sort of gastronomic and cultural choices one can
make in Bethesda, Cleveland Park, Winnetka and Santa Monica, where network reporters live.
Why does this sort of non-sensical reporting continue unabated at CBS News?
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