The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
‘Nightly News’ shows community that took responsibility for its own economic future; CBS portrays $7 gas as a positive; CNN: Suburbs the new ghetto with neighbors 'firing up crack pipes.’

July 2, 2008

The Good

     Lately the news about the economy has been geared toward hardship and has sought out solutions that involved a government response of some sort. However, a segment on the July 1 “NBC Nightly News” featured a group of people who took matters into their own hands to improve their community’s economic standing.

     “We have been hearing this bad economic news coming from all directions lately and there’s no joy in reporting it night after night,” “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams said. “But tonight we have a success story. It comes from upstate New York, where former employees of a closed-down paper mill have brought the business back to life, along with the jobs that go with it.”

     NBC correspondent Mike Taibbi reported on a community that took their economic woes into their own hands and made things better. A group from Newton Falls, N.Y. saw an opportunity in the American paper industry – an industry that has fallen on tough times.

     “[I]n an industry losing out to foreign competitors, one-fourth of the 600 mills have shut down since 2000,” Taibbi said. “[Thunder Bay Fine Papers president Dennis] Bunnell and several Canadian partners saw a market they could serve if they could keep costs way down. So they offered decent pay, medical and dental and a 401k but no pensions or paid vacations and the mill runs 24-7.”

     According to Taibbi, the plant is churning out 200 tons of paper a day and is geared toward high-end publishers as clients and buyers.

The Bad
      Expensive gas isn't so bad to the "CBS Evening News," as long as it promotes an agenda that caters to left-of-center sensibilities and makes Americans behave more like Europeans. 

      Economists from Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) (NYSE:CM) forecasted $7-a-gallon gas prices by 2010, which according to some analysts would force 10 million vehicles off U.S. roads over four years. CIBC based its prediction on $200-per-barrel oil by 2010.

     "In fact, by 2012, higher prices could send an additional 10 million vehicles off the road," CBS correspondent Priya David said June 26. Although $7 gas would do the most harm to low-income Americans, David praised the effects it would have in easing congestion.

     "It would certainly ease congestion. Having that many cars come off the road would be like permanently parking twice as many cars as there are in the state of New Jersey," David said. "Some look to Europe for solutions to the skyrocketing gas prices."

     "They drive nice little cars, which maybe we should start doing," one woman said to CBS during the segment.

     David compared the United States to Great Britain, stating that expensive gasoline has already had an effect there.

     "Expensive gasoline has led Europeans to also drive less than we do," David said. "In America, over 90 percent of all households commute to work by car. Compare that to just 60 percent of British households."

     The grim news was greeted with open arms by global warming alarmist and a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress, Joseph Romm.

     "People's entire mindset as to what kind of vehicles they drive, where they live, choices they make on holidays and vacations are going to be quite different," Romm said.

The Ugly
     The housing downturn has a whole new dimension not realized – nice, suburban subdivisions could turn into vandalized crack houses due to the housing slump, according to CNN correspondent Greg Hunter. 

     “Well you don’t want to jump into a housing market too and end up buying America’s next ghetto. I mean, if you buy into a subdivision that’s way out like [CNN senior business correspondent Ali Velshi’s] talking about, all of a sudden the house down the street ends up, you know, with broken windows and people at night, you know, firing up crack pipes, hey, you’ve got a problem. So that’s going to be a real problem,” said Hunter on CNN’s June 28 “Your $$$$$.”

     Hunter suggested much of the housing downturn is still to come. “Are we at the bottom? Boy, Ali, I wouldn’t be catching that falling knife.”   

     Hunter’s analysis of how bad the housing market might get relied heavily on Yale economics professor Robert Schiller, who said last year the downturn was still in its first inning [if it were a baseball game].

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly tracks the best and worst media coverage of business and economics. Readers are invited to submit suggestions or news tips to Staff Writer Jeff Poor at jpoor@mediaresearch.org.