Fox: Drill! Drill! Drill! Corporate Media in Action
Reported by Melanie - July 8, 2008 -
If you've ever wondered precisely what "corporate media" means, I've got a quintessential example for you right here. Yesterday (July 7, 2008) on Your World w/Neil Cavuto, substitute host David Asman and Fox Business Network talker Eric Bolling unabashedly advocated for offshore drilling on behalf of Chevron and the other big oil companies.
Both of them did. Asman, the alleged "journalist" on the alleged "fair and balanced news" channel and Bolling, presented as an objective reporter, who is "also a commodities trader on the New York Mercantile Exchange. He specializes in trading natural gas and crude oil. It has been reported that Bolling accounts for up to 5% of total volume in the natural gas futures floor." Asman referred to him (in the video below) as, "the world's leading oil speculator."
Watch the video. It's amazing to see these two guys jumping up and down in their seats (their enthusiasm is palpable) pushing to make some of the richest corporations in the world even richer. And one can only wonder what Bolling stands to gain.
Here are some of the money quotes:
Bolling: "I'd like to stand up and say this right on this show: Yes we can drill our way out of this! We can..."
Asman: "There you go."
Bolling: "Put some rigs into the earth. Get some..."
Asman: "Absolutely."
Bolling: "Get some oil out of the ground and guess what? Every speculator on the planet is going to jump out of that trade."
Asman: "If they see more oil coming on in the future, the price of oil is going to go down. You are the world's leading oil speculator..."
Bolling: "We can drill our way out of this. Put some drills in the ground. Get 2 million more barrels a day out of the ground somewhere. We can do it! We can do it! We can do it right on the Outer Continental Shelf... ANWR's a longer term. ANWR's a 5 to 7 year prospect. Maybe a 10 year. The OCS, the Outer Continental Shelf, is 1 to 6. We've talked about it ad nauseam. By the way, we can drill our way out of this problem."
Asman: "Chevron is ready to drill today," in the Destin Dome and "Congress is stopping it!"â
Bolling: "Chevron went out of their way to find that oil. They know it's there! ... They know it's there. They know the size of it. They just need someone to lift the moratorium and say, 'drill away guys,' and watch natural gas prices go down. Watch crude oil prices go down and you know what? Watch your pump prices go down."
Here's the video:
â None other than George W. Bush and his brother Jeb (then the Governor of Florida) closed the Destin Dome to drilling until 2011. That little ditty was, of course, left out of the discussion because this is all about (1) giving the oil companies what they want and (2) blaming Democrats for high gas prices.
