Being a news anchor isn’t rocket science. But a little bit of basic arithmetic couldn’t hurt.
NBC’s Natalie Morales and CBS’s Julie Chen mistakenly told their respective August 14 morning show audiences that gasoline prices of $3.03-a-gallon were at “record” highs.
“Nationwide gas prices have hit yet another record high rising just over a penny in the last three weeks,” Morales told “Today” show viewers. A half-hour later Chen told her “Early Show” audience that “record prices at the pump” could soon “drop in the wake of encouraging news from the Mid East and BP oil.”
In truth, the average gas price is still below the $3.059-a-gallon post-Katrina peak from September 2005 according to AAA’s FuelGaugeReport.com. When adjusting for inflation, the difference is even starker, as gas prices would have to surpass $3.12-a-gallon to set a record, according to the federal government’s Energy Information Agency (EIA).
Talk of “record” highs was absent on the August 14 “Good Morning
Roberts’s guest Mellody Hobson of Ariel Capital Management, explained why motorists could actually see a price drop in the near future because of the Israeli/Hezbollah ceasefire and the failed terror attack.
A transcript of Hobson’s interview with Roberts can be found at the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters.org Web site.
