Monday, December 05, 2005

Score one for me ...

The other day I opined in this post that "the recent surge in [oil] profits is neither typical nor sustainable." Now along comes the International Herald Tribune with this piece, in which John Browne, chief executive of BP, is quoted as calling current [oil price] levels "unsustainably high."
To return to the theme of that original post: Why are high gas prices front page news, but a 30 percent drop in gas prices isn't? Why is it news when the price of crude rises, but not when it falls (and it's fallen about $12 a barrel since the summer high)? Could this selectivity have anything to do with a drop in newspapers' credibility (essential to their survival, if anything is)? Here is another take on the selectivity theme -- note Columbia Journalism Review editor Steve Lovelady's singularly silly response.
And why is this of interest to a book review editor? Because book revewing is one of the principal areas in which newspapers have chosen to short-change readers. At least as many people read books as watch TV. But you'd never know that from reading newspapers.

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