Care to gas up with an orange mocha frappuchino, anyone?
Gasoline prices are four-and-half cents lower from last year and down nine cents from a week ago, according to the Energy Information Administration. But, the news was greeted only by ABC “World News with Charles Gibson” and ignored by CBS “Evening News” and NBC “Nightly News.”
But even Gibson managed to put a negative spin on the news with the odd correlation of the drop in gasoline with an increase in the price of coffee at Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX).
“News today in this country, that gas guzzling is getting cheaper while coffee guzzling gets more expensive,” said Gibson. “The price of gas took a dive in the past week. The government says it was down nine cents a gallon, to an average of $2.96.”
The three major networks, ABC, CBS and NBC, are often quick to point out any rise in gas prices, but sometimes reluctant to report a drop in gas prices. Gas price decreases immediately before the Memorial Day holiday went largely unnoticed by those networks.
Gibson did manage to salvage one obvious bright spot for the consumer. “Nine cents is also the change announced by Starbucks,” Gibson said. “It's raising the price of a cup of coffee by that amount, a net gain for the consumer, since you don't have to buy 20 gallons of Starbucks.”
In June when gas prices fell, ABC overshadowed the news with a story about the increasing cost of a gallon of milk.
