In case you missed it...
The USA Today featured an article last fall (Sept. 6) which touted the news of the discovery of a vast oil field in the Gulf of Mexico. The article reported that already a test area in what is called “Jack Field”, is yielding 6,000 barrels of oil per day. It also reported the estimates that at least 3 billion barrels and as much as 15 billion barrels may be contained there in. As any normal driving American can see from the past news like this has propelled oil prices and likewise prices at the pump fluctuate sharply downward and upward seemingly without sound, physical reasoning. The surprising things about the article (besides it being such positive news) were that on the same page was a graph, which the USA Today calls Snapshots, showing that a poll of Americans suggested that most people think high gas prices were here to stay and that they will even go higher in the future. Also in the article is a prediction, by the author I suppose, that this recent test and the field’s future production would do nothing to “shave oil prices in the near term”. Perhaps a retraction should have been published by the “newspaper”. Did not happen.
What this poll and prediction (HA!) show is that this kind of reporting is hardly news. News in the meaningful way that sticks to facts, I mean. It clearly shows the non-utility of printing the results of polls. The poll, which was positioned at approximately the 8:00 position from the oil field article, is brain candy, space-taking, and useless. Gallup conducted the poll for what? All it shows is that when asked Americans respond with their hearts or how they feel. “Gas prices are too high and they are going to stay that way!” spouts the normally ignorant, negative public. It still is not news. It clearly affects nothing but our visual neurons. In fact all it shows is that the public can easily be flat wrong.
What the article clearly shows and reports correctly is that current prices of a commodity are clearly influenced by our collective paradigm. And now this paradigm may shift. It also collaterally shows the ingenuity of the American mind. This discovery and test were as the article states accomplished using technology which, “wasn’t available…Until several years ago”. I for one never had realistic doubts. For you see we Americans do not give up easily. If a current technology does not work then we will create an entire new one.
Maybe our own paradigm shift is in order when we first hear of the constant, negative news. Maybe we should just spin it for our selves. Everyday.
What this poll and prediction (HA!) show is that this kind of reporting is hardly news. News in the meaningful way that sticks to facts, I mean. It clearly shows the non-utility of printing the results of polls. The poll, which was positioned at approximately the 8:00 position from the oil field article, is brain candy, space-taking, and useless. Gallup conducted the poll for what? All it shows is that when asked Americans respond with their hearts or how they feel. “Gas prices are too high and they are going to stay that way!” spouts the normally ignorant, negative public. It still is not news. It clearly affects nothing but our visual neurons. In fact all it shows is that the public can easily be flat wrong.
What the article clearly shows and reports correctly is that current prices of a commodity are clearly influenced by our collective paradigm. And now this paradigm may shift. It also collaterally shows the ingenuity of the American mind. This discovery and test were as the article states accomplished using technology which, “wasn’t available…Until several years ago”. I for one never had realistic doubts. For you see we Americans do not give up easily. If a current technology does not work then we will create an entire new one.
Maybe our own paradigm shift is in order when we first hear of the constant, negative news. Maybe we should just spin it for our selves. Everyday.
posted by Daedalus at 3/08/2007 12:34:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home