To Drill or Not To Drill

In a White House Press Release last week, President Bush requested that Congress “pass good legislation as soon as possible” to lift the federal ban on exploring the Outer Continental Shelf and allow states to permit offshore oil drilling. He also demanded that Congress should allow drilling in the Alaskan Arctic Wildlife Refuge. Bush’s claim is that this will “bring enormous benefits to the American people” but this claim is not even supported by his own administration.

A report by the Department of Energy stated that the Arctic Refuge’s reserves will not have a significant impact on reducing the price of a barrel of oil and “is not projected to have a large impact on world oil prices”. The best estimate is a savings of pennies on a gallon of gas in about 20 years from now, but in the meantime the big oil companies will make billions more to add to their already record breaking profits.

Democrats rejected the demand for lifting the drilling moratorium for many reasons, naming that because the oil companies are currently leasing over 68 million acres offshore that are not being developed, they do not need to lease any more. The Speaker of the House even called this proposal "another page from energy policy that was literally written by the oil industry — give away more public resources". The other reasons for not wanting the ban lifted is explained by the Center for American Progress in the article, "Ten Reasons Not to Lift Offshore Drilling Moratorium".

Bush must have predicted this reaction from the Democrats because in his energy “discussion” he made a point of attacking Democrats by accusing them of blocking his energy proposals and charging them with being the reason behind the high gasoline costs.

“Unfortunately, Democrats in Congress are standing in the way of further development. In last year's omnibus spending bill, Democratic leaders inserted a provision blocking oil shale leasing on federal lands.”

“I know the Democratic leaders have opposed some of these policies in the past. Now that their opposition has helped drive gas prices to record levels, I ask them to reconsider their positions. If congressional leaders leave for the 4th of July recess without taking action, they will need to explain why $4-a-gallon gasoline is not enough incentive for them to act. And Americans will rightly ask how high oil -- how high gas prices have to rise before the Democratic-controlled Congress will do something about it.”

The mainstream media has reported this as a partisan issue. It is another case of the Republicans verses the Democrats and we are left trying to separate the facts from the fiction. Much of this coverage has been dedicated to John McCain’s sudden changed of stance and newly found support of Bush’s proposal. An article in the Washington Post details McCain’s reversal of the position that he originally took during his presidential campaign in 2000.

What John McCain and President Bush are proposing is not even a short term fix and it will not have any weight on today’s gas prices and does not offer any solutions to the long term problem; where are we going to get our energy from when the oil runs out? We have about 2% of the world's oil reserves yet we average 25% of total world consumption. So even if we drill for this the oil and do not export it, it will be gone in about a year. Then what?

There are many more issues with pollution and the environment that the traditional media spends very little time covering. I guess these issues are not as exciting as the presidential “horserace” and how the candidates’ views affect their position in the race and their numbers in the polls. The politician’s views are all that the media relays and there has been little heard from the environmental scientist or even the Department of Energy. How is the media influencing the public's agreement with a lift on the ban? Are American's suffering enough from the high gas prices to make their elected leaders go along with this? Many people argue that investing in alternative fuels will not produce results for another decade but if that was the case, consider that in a decade it would not be “alternative” fuel anymore. This investment needs to begin at some point and the common sentiment is that we are already a decade behind.

You Call This News?

Since my last blog entry some of my conservative friends (yeah I got a few) have challenged my views on Fox News contending that Fox is a response to the rest of the liberal media and all views need to be heard. I try to stay open minded and consider all sides but I just can not bring myself to consider this to be news. Fox is spewing propaganda and now it is explicitly racist in their coverage of Barack Obama and his wife Michelle. The conservative network is working as a vehicle for the Republican Party and their claims of leveling the playing field have gone too far as just in the past three weeks Fox News has had to acknowledge, on three different occasions, how inappropriate the references to Obama were.

Most recently, Fox News refers to Michelle Obama as “Obama’s baby mama”. A graphic with the words "Outraged Liberals: Stop Picking on Obama's Baby Mama!" ran during an interview in which Fox was discussing if Michelle Obama has been under attack unfairly by critics. This description was a blatent racial slur in the context they were using it and it should not be tolerated from any media outlets regardless of the bias of their owners and their audience. “Where do you even start when criticizing Fox's slur? Do you try to explain that 'baby mama' is slang for the unmarried mother of a man's child, and not his wife, or even a girlfriend?" Joan Walsh wrote on Salon.com, which spotted the graphic. Fox did eventually issue a partial apology for the remarks.

Fox News anchor E.D. Hill also had to apologize for referring to the Obama’s nomination winning victory fist pump in St. Paul as a “terrorist fist jab”. She later claimed she was just repeating a media characterization of the gesture. What she didn't explain was where exactly the characterization came from. The liberal media watchdog web group, Media Matters, is calling for a real apology. On their site you can sign a petition demanding an apology and the site also provides contact information so you can call or email CEO Roger Ailes and E.D. Hill to tell them what you would like to see done differently in the future. Media Matters also adds that while making your calls or emails to please remain polite and professional. All other reports of the hand gesture were positive and good natured. The Boston Globe wrote: "The Obamas are proposing that the fist bump ... is the public-display-of-affection of change, the pucker-up of the future. And this, as much as anything Obama has espoused, is something of a mini-revolution."

A few weeks before that, another Fox News analyst Liz Trotta made a reference that it was unfortunate Osama Bin Laden and Barack Obama couldn't both be assassinated. She later is forced to apologize, “I am so sorry about what happened yesterday in that lame attempt at humor. I sincerely regret it and apologize to anybody I’ve offended. It’s a very colorful political season, and many of us are making mistakes and saying things that we wish that we hadn’t said". “Clarification noted,” replied Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer.

With the increase in attacks like these, a huge outcry heard in new media outets all over the web is forcing Fox to respond. The site Fox Attacks offers petitions you can sign, demanding the media "reject FOX's smears of Barack Obama" as well as offering continued support of Obama's refusal to appear on FOX. This organization of web groups is making a difference by being led by the people instead of the media and the readers of fox attacks were sucessful in leading a boycott of a primary democratic debate co-sponsered by Fox News and the Nevada Democractic Party. This boycott was later extended to all Fox News debates and caused CNN to be the most watched cable news network for the first time in six years untill FOX took over the number one spot once again at the end of the primaries.

Do Not Pass Go

By now most of you have heard of Rupert Murdoch and you know he is the head of the world's largest media empire. What you may not know is the extent that he has been using his powerful position to push his neoconservative ideological agenda and now he is trying to take over what little he doesn't already own of New York’s media. It had been reported Mr. Murdoch, 76, is planning on using The Wall Street Journal, which he bought last year as part of a $5 billion take over of the Dow Jones & Company, to further push his views and at the same time eradicate The New York Times.

Change is already apparent in The Wall Street Journal. In the past few months it has begun to emphasis shorter and more general news stories in an attempt to broaden its audience. "It's being presented less as a paper for businesspeople and more as a paper for people who like to read newspapers," said Nicholas Lemann, dean at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.

Murdock’s plan is moving along nicely since what some say was the forced resignation of top ranking editor of The Wall Street Journal, Marcus W. Brauchli. Since this allows Murdock to have more control in his battle against The Times. “My worry about The New York Times is that it’s got the only position as a national elitist general interest paper,” Murdock told Time magazine, “So the network news picks its cues from The Times and local papers do, too. It has a huge influence. And we’d love to challenge that.” Now Murdock is trying to buy the Long Island newspaper Newsday, and by owning three newspapers in a major market, as well as two TV stations he would be in violation of FCC law.

The Times reports that this may finally lead to action from the FCC.
This is because of a recent rule that “permits a company to own one television station in the same city in the top 20 markets so long as there are at least eight other independent sources of news and the station is not in the top four”.

A media monopoly like Murdoch's is not in the interest of the public. Do we really want our news to be limited to what the owner of Fox News feeds us? Even with the increase in media outlets available there will be a loss of original thoughts and views with the loss of an objective mainstream media. How has this been allowed to happen? It is recognized how accommodating the Bush administration has been to Murdoch’s equally accommodating neoconservative ideological monopoly. “During the lead up to the U.S. invasion of and war in Iraq, the editors of Murdoch's 175 media holdings vociferously supported President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair's pro-war campaign” according to the Right Web.

Two particular News Corp holdings have provided neoconservatives a platform to influence from, Fox News and the Weekly Standard. Gene Kimmelman of the Consumers Union told the New York Times: "[Murdoch] has extended the most blatant editorializing in the entire world through his media properties, and that is exactly the example of what we need to worry about when any one entrepreneur owns and controls too many media outlets" (April 7, 2003).

Some may not realize the establishment of the Fox News Channel was with the intention of being bias. “Convinced that many people found CNN and the major broadcast networks too liberal, Mr. Murdoch and the former Republican political consultant Roger Ailes chartered Fox to be more conservative or, from their point of view, more centrist.” accordingly to the New York Times.

You can view all of Murdoch's News Corp assets on newcorp.com. They include film, television, cable, newspapers, books, magazines, including the New York Post, the National Geographic Channel, HarperCollins Books, and 20th Century Fox, and in 2006, Murdoch acquired MySpace.