Today: Ann Curry Auditions as Celebrity Spokeswoman for Prius, Archer Daniels

Today Show/NewsBusters ^ | Mark Finkelstein

[governsleastgovernsbest]

by Mark Finkelstein

July 11, 2006

Here at NewsBusters, we keep close tabs on the MSM. That's why I can say with considerable certainty that this morning, the Today show ran its . . . nth segment on 'soaring gas prices.' The template is time-honored: reporter standing in front of gas pumps with scary-high price placard in background. Cut to clips of regular folks filling up, expressing varying degrees of outrage. Bring in an 'oil industry expert' for some words of wisdom. Back to reporter at pump, warily wondering just how much higher prices can go. Conclude with hosts back in the studio, tongues a-cluckin'. Rinse and repeat.

In a segment narrated by NBC reporter Lisa Daniels, the formula was followed to a 't' again this morning by the Today show, with one notable innovation: co-host Ann Curry used the occasion to work in an endorsement of hybrid cars and ethanol.

Before detailing Ann's intervention, one other item of note. An 'inconvenient truth' managed to sneak into the segment. Oil industry expert Trilby Lundberg of The Lundberg Survey let slip that "we're just six cents under the real high, the inflation-adjusted high, of March '81 in today's dollars." Wha-t-t-t? You mean after four years of Jimmy Carter gas prices were actually higher than they are today in real terms and began to head down under Ronald Reagan!?

In any case, at the end of the segment and things were thrown back to the studio for some parting shots by the hosts, Ann Curry weighed in with this bit of endorsement-by-way-of-commentary:

"You know, I think hybrid cars and ethanol are sounding better and better."

Prius, Archer Daniels Midland? Are you you listening? I think you just found your next celebrity spokeswoman!

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Today Show/NewsBusters pain-at-the-pump ping.

[Lazamataz]

Loved him in Rocky Horrer.

[Fawn]

"You know, I think hybrid cars and ethanol are sounding better and better."

I can't disagree with her here. Gas is way out of hand.....we need to drill and build refineries or import some engineers who know how to use create better fuel sources. Gas prices are throwing mybudget out of whack.. I have to drive alot.

[relictele]

What exactly do they teach camera ops and editors/directors at their respective schools? Every news story on every station is shot the exact same way. This gas-pump story is an amusing description of a hackneyed story/presentation.

In a similar vein, every time they show a radio studio the cameras invariably zoom in the VU meters to show the little needles bouncing around. Note to cameraman: it's radio. There's not much happening in the studio except talking. Looking for something - anything - that moves (like a little VU meter) is largely pointless and insults your audience. Of course, that's what they're best at!

[Bahbah]

On a somewhat related note, Senator Wyden complained of high oil company profits yesterday saying that "they are sitting on piles of money--we are not seeing those dollars put back into exploration and development here in our country..."

Earlier in his remarks he complained that the oil companies were investing their exploration efforts in other countries. Does anyone believe for a minute that Ron Wyden would allow exploration anywhere in this country, yet he complains bitterly that it is not being done.

[bpjam]

Its wonderful seeing people on TV who are not experts in any subject that they report on but still feel completely comfortable telling us what WE should be thinking. That old saying 'those who can't do, teach' should be changed to 'those who can think, report'

[ClearCase_guy]

Am I correct in thinking that ethanol costs more per gallon than gasoline? Am I also correct in thinking that adding ethanol to gasoline reduces the actual miles per gallon delivered by the fuel?

How is ethanol a solution to anything?

[stylin19a]

good grief...nobody adjusts the money in my pocket for inflation.
yet I get to hear how we aren't paying as much as we did blah blah years ago.

40 buck is 40 bucks.
Just pay it and quit whining.

[relictele]

Equally amusing is the screenshot - they sent Lisa Daniels (based in NYC presumably) all the way to.....NYC!

HellO!?!?! Manhattan? Island? Urban landscape? Traffic? Of course the prices are going to be astronomical there (it's $3/gallon here which is crazy but she's in front of a $3.75/gal placard)!

More laziness disguised as news and/or reporting.

[demkicker]

Back to reporter at pump, warily wondering just how much higher prices can go. Conclude with hosts back in the studio, tongues a-cluckin'. Rinse and repeat.

I love the way you write. It's always deadly accurate with just the right touch of sarcasm. This quip gave me a good chuckle, thanks!

[TKDietz]

Last May ethanol was under a $1.30 a gallon. Prices are super high now because the demand exceeds the supply. The high demand is mostly government created. New ethanol plants coming on line should take care of the supply problem, but ethanol is never going to be really cheap compared to gasoline. It will always go up with gasoline prices because ethanol producers are businesses and they will charge whatever the market will bear. It is true that ethanol used in an E85 mixture reduces miles per gallon by around 25%, give or take a little depending on how well the engine is optimized for ethanol. A lot of people don't care and will pay more though because they would rather see their money staying here and supporting American farmers rather than supporting dictators and crazy Arabs. Just having all those people willing to pay more will always insure that ethanol is priced high enough that it will rarely be a better deal than gasoline when it comes to the price at the pump.

I think ethanol is part of the solution to our energy problems though. The technology is getting better improving ethanol yields and reducing production costs. New cellulosic ethanol technology allowing for use of all sorts of biomass as ethanol feedstock will increase our production capabilities substantially. That technology exists today and is getting cheaper and better every year. We'll never supply more than a small amount of our fuel needs with ethanol, but every little bit helps, and it does actually keep money here in this country and create jobs. World energy demand is growing, oil supplies are dwindling, and what is left is becoming increasingly harder and more expensive to find, get out of the ground, and refine. The days of finding good clean crude just bubbling out of the ground are over. It is time to start developing alternative fuel sources. We do need to keep drilling for more oil. But a little ethanol, a little biodiesel, some liquefied coal, fuel made from oil shale and tar sands, and so on, will help us stretch out existing oil reserves and if we can produce enough oil and various alternative fuels it should provide us some buffer as oil prices rise, which could be a real problem if something happens like a category five hurricane that destroys most of our refining capabilities, or a major war in the Middle East. We need to do this not only to ease the transition from oil but also to provide ourselves some protection against the problems that would come with catastrophic event that suddenly tightens our oil supply in a major way. As it is we have all of our eggs in one basket with oil and are at the mercy of oil cartels made up in large part by unsavory people and unstable governments.

Ethanol may not be a major part of our fuel supply decades from now, but in the near term the ethanol industry is going to boom because it is here and now technology. It's a fuel that is relatively cheap to produce that can fulfill a small but substantial percentage of our transportation fuel needs. Every car out there built in the last few decades can run fine on 10% ethanol, and while you might void your warranty if you did it, most actually could run without problems on more than 20% ethanol. In Brazil their cars have all been running on 24% ethanol for a long time now, most without modification. It's a fuel that can be produced locally and added to gasoline with very little changes in our existing infrastructure. Almost all cars will run fine with some ethanol and E85 compatible cars only cost manufacturers about $200 more to produce. Something like hydrogen powered cars may be the future but those are far too expensive now and the changes required in our infrastructure will come with monumental costs.

[bpjam]

Just one of my pet peeves is any reporting about gas prices always involved B-roll of gas station price signs. And they are always the most unbelievable numbers typically 20% or more above what people are actually paying. They find a full service station and then shoot their sign to prove that people are paying $4 a gallon. Its lazy and its incredibly prejudicial and they know it. Instead of having to go out and do some REAL reporting, they just use the same old footage which has no actual relation to the current story. Its like with the MSM talkes about Rush, they always use a picture from the 80's when he was really fat.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Thanks, DK. I didn't coin 'rinse & repeat,' but it does seem to fit here!

[relictele]

Its lazy and its incredibly prejudicial and they know it.

Agreed. We may be threadjacking here but there and there are so many targets but I can't resist a few:

- Reporters standing in front of a hospital where a celebrity and/or a crash victim has been taken. Are they waiting to be invited up to the treatment room?

- Interviews with mothers of thugs who claim "he was always a good boy....never got in trouble."

- Extreme close-ups of lightbars on police & EMT vehicles. Blink blink, rotate rotate, gee whiz that's neato.

- Going to the 'newsroom' (actually just a cubicle farm with no walls) for an important update....when the studio set and the 'newsroom' are 25 feet apart down a hallway! Do the anchors ever get to relate important stories? After all there are two of them getting paid to sit around, read a TelePrompTer and finish each other's sentences!

[N. Theknow]

What exactly do they teach camera ops and editors/directors at their respective schools? Every news story on every station is shot the exact same way.

Two more things...

1. Any gun incident/crime will show a picture of a handgun in the upper right hand corner of the screen with a target underneath the gun.

2. Most expensive seats for watching a baseball game are behind home plate. Which camera view do the directors pick for 99% of the game? The same view you would get from the cheap seats in centerfield with a pair of binoculars.

[bpjam]

I have (in a past life) produced segments for television and the b-roll, or background footage, is essential for news because the audience will die of boredom just watching two people sit at a desk with a still picture over their shoulder. And the whole, reporter on the scene, thing give the impression that the news people are really out there and on top of it.

Local news is one thing but cable news is a whole different problem. Cable news rarely ever has anybody at the place where the story is occurring. There is virtually no 'live' reporting anywhere so you just get hours and hours of stock background footage over and over and over again. (Think video of Michael Jackson walking into court in his pajamas or video of the Duke lacrosse team in uniform stretching and playing catch). Its mind-numbing. They need to get more creative and/or stop replaying the same stories over and over again. The only thing worse is when they stand in front of a backdrop and lie to you about being somewhere or the other (its a meaningless lie but they do it anyways).