New York Times whores - ALL of its oil and energy reporting. PROPAGANDA from the pages of Herr Goebbels...

The Gray Lady's Obdurate Bias on Oil Reporting
by Raymond J. Leasy
Posted October 9, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/raymond-j-learsy/the-gray-ladys-obdurate-_b_67708.html

On it goes at the "Gray Lady." And, sadly it is becoming progressively more debilitating and peculiar. Unable to present an objective view of the oil industry and oil markets THE NEW YORK TIMES has VACATED VIRTUALLY ALL CLAIM TO RESPONSIBLE REPORTING on one of the economy's more important industries and critical commodities. In effect placing into question the bona fides of its business and financial pages. And writing of the New York Times' shortcomings on this issue is becoming boring.

On Friday, the lead Business Day article, "Can a Plucky US Economy Surmount $80 Oil" could have been written by a semi-skilled oil industry flack. It reports yes, the price of oil is high, reaching record levels. Then goes to assuage us that the fallout has been negligible, factories stayed busy, consumers continued spending.

The NY Times article then poses the question: with the economy starting to sputter, will the high price of oil cause pain? Blithely it answers the question, "Many economists do not think so...if the United States entered a recession the price of oil would quickly drop." Then, to give the appearance of balance and to lay the groundwork for continued steep prices, goes on to quote none other than Larry Goldstein of the Petroleum Research Foundation, a foundation largely supported by the oil industry and always ready to trot out whatever rationalizations are needed by a gullible press to explain the manipulated levels of today's oil prices. Says Goldstein, "Our relative importance in the global markets is diminishing" and an economic slowdown "won't have a visible impact on high oil prices." Get it? Prices will remain high and the NY Times has helped indoctrinate us into accepting the reasons why.

The Times' article goes on to state there is little precedent for understanding today's oil market. Which is probably true if you ceaselessly report oil industry PR information handouts as received gospel. The article goes on to repeat the tried and true oil industry saws, placating us with such bamboozle as "the economy has become less sensitive to energy prices," and "the amount of energy needed to produce $1 of economic output has been cut nearly in half since 1988," and on.
continued at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/raymond-j-learsy/the-gray-ladys-obdurate-_b_67708.html