Usually I zoom-in on one item from this favorite web site, the Media Research Center, but at the risk of looking like a Media Research Center fanboy, I’m going to paste their entire CyberAlert for Friday April 28 2006 here, because they’re all too good to not look at. This is a great web site. So is Media Research Center. Ba-ding.
1. Focus on Exxon Profits, Skip How Government Gets More in Taxes
The broadcast network evening newscasts on Thursday night hyperventilated over “record” $8.4 billion first quarter profits for ExxonMobil, but failed to point out how government taxes exceed oil company earnings. ABC’s Betsy Stark complained: “The company says that’s a record level of investment in new supplies. Maybe so, but it’s less than it spent rewarding shareholders. 15 percent of profits went directly to shareholders in the form of cash dividends, and the biggest chunk, 40 percent, was used to repurchase Exxon’s own stock.” But ExxonMobil paid 83 percent as much as the $8.4 billion it earned, $7 billion, in just federal income tax—and a lot more in other taxes. NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams promised “a reality check on sky-high oil company profits,” but all Lisa Myers delivered was demagoguery. Myers began by charging that “for outraged consumers, the staggering profit numbers boil down to this: Exxon earned 9.5 cents on every dollar of gasoline and oil sold, cashing in at every stage of the process.” Yes, ExxonMobil cashed in by working to get their product to the retail customer while the federal government collected 18.4 cents per gallon in tax for doing nothing. Federal, state and local taxes total an average of 46 cents per gallon—significantly more than the 28 cents Exxon earned on a $3 gallon of gas.
2. Morning Shows Ignore How Big Government Takes More than Big Oil
All three network morning shows played the envy card Thursday morning, as they hyped the “record high profits” and “corporate greed” of American oil companies. High on their agenda: ExxonMobil’s announcement of $8.4 billion in profits, which the networks implied was scandalous given the high price of oil. But unstated in the network coverage was the fact that the U.S. government took in more than $7 billion from ExxonMobil during the first quarter of 2006, a jump of more than $2 billion from the same time period in 2005. And that doesn’t count the more than $7.6 billion in excise taxes—the gas tax—that ExxonMobil collected for the government during the same quarter. Plus another $11 billion in “other taxes” and ExxonMobil sent the government more than $25 billion in the first quarter of 2006—three times more than the amount network reporters seem to feel is obscene.
3. Low Consumer Confidence Baffles Couric, But What Has NBC Shown?
NBC’s Today show on Thursday was full of negative news for President Bush, as it usually is, so it was a bit surprising when Katie Couric asked Tim Russert why the President hasn’t gained from positive consumer confidence. Maybe it’s because, according to a quick Nexis search of Today, the phrase “consumer confidence” hasn’t even been uttered all year long.
4. Ari to O’Reilly: Stupid Questions Have Led to Media’s Decline
In the first interview segment on FNC’s The O’Reilly Factor on Wednesday night, Bill O’Reilly told former Bush Press Secretary Ari Fleischer that it would be nice to be able to tell reporters like Helen Thomas (politely) that everyone knows they have an agenda, but they can’t. Ari responded by saying that questions that the public thinks are stupid is one reason the media are in decline in public esteem: “The Press Secretary’s job is to mix it up a little bit with the press in a respectful way but also in the modern media world, where the country gets to watch the questions, that’s one of the reasons I think, Bill, the press is in decline substantially because they bring a bit of it on themselves. I know one reporter who once said there’s no such thing as a stupid question. I think the reality is, the public watches some of these questions, not all, but some of them, and they think, that was really a stupid question.”
5. Left-Winger Rosie O’Donnell to Replace Vieira on ABC’s The View
ABC on Friday is expected to name the comedic lesbian activist/former daytime host Rosie O’Donnell as Meredith Vieira’s replacement on ABC’s daytime show, The View, the AP reported in confirming a pick first reported by the syndicated Extra TV show. Last year, O’Donnell declared: “This President invaded a sovereign nation in defiance of the UN. He is basically a war criminal. Honestly. He should be tried at The Hague.”
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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