No, don't. Please
Rather than tracking down all the fishwraps that have indulged themselves in a little pump masochism over the past week or so, let's see what the same writer had to say three years back:
A new report from the Oil Price Information Service says most of Ohio, including all of the central part of the state, is doing comparatively well in dealing with gas prices.
The Pain at the Pump Index finds that the median Franklin County household spends 4.6 percent of its monthly income on gasoline, a figure that is lower than in 86 percent of counties nationwide.
So not only is there a "Pain at the Pump Index," but it shows that Columbusians are doing fairly well out of things? Well, shazam. Since the writer remembered to call the same professor to opine on the likely impact of that latest doings, do you suppose he could have checked in this alleged index while he was at it?
You can have lots of fun just running phrases through a database from the comfort of your own home. Imagine how cool it would be if you got to show reporters the gory details before hitting the "send" button, rather than after.
The Pain at the Pump Index finds that the median Franklin County household spends 4.6 percent of its monthly income on gasoline, a figure that is lower than in 86 percent of counties nationwide.
So not only is there a "Pain at the Pump Index," but it shows that Columbusians are doing fairly well out of things? Well, shazam. Since the writer remembered to call the same professor to opine on the likely impact of that latest doings, do you suppose he could have checked in this alleged index while he was at it?
You can have lots of fun just running phrases through a database from the comfort of your own home. Imagine how cool it would be if you got to show reporters the gory details before hitting the "send" button, rather than after.
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posted by fev at 11:49 PM
3 Comments:
So how would you suggest news outlets treat the recent rapid increase in fuel prices, if sympathy with the readership is verboten?
If you must express sympathy instead of reporting, do it without cliches that don't even mean anything. How "painful" is it, if you're barely feeling it compared to the rest of the country?
Surely pain, whether "at the pump" or otherwise, is an absolute: it doesn't matter what "the rest of the country" feels (although they may feel free to laugh at you, as we northerners do when a light flurry shuts down a major southern metropolitan area). In this case the "pain" is caused by the increase in prices locally, and not by how prices in Columbus compare to Hawaii, California, or that Mobil station on the New York stretch of the Palisades Parkway. (It would, on the other hand, be relevant to compare current prices in Columbus with those in the past, or to cite a study showing what fraction of Ohioans' family budgets goes to pay for fuel.)
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