Talking about BP reminded me of the ABC newscast last week. I was very irritated by the newscast, not at Exxon (although they may deserve some of my irritant) but at ABC. The show trumpeted the huge profit Exxon had made and played with the numbers such as "this is $$$$ per second...," "more in 30 seconds than many families earn in a year" and "you paid for...at the pump,". In my mind this was flagrant yellow journalism. Designed to incite (entertain?) it was strongly biased reporting. Nowhere in the newscast was the net profit percentage given, or for that matter any other data which would enable analytic evaluation of the report. Its all relative and for me to get excited I need to know what the norms are.
Does this mean I endorse the high profits earned? Not necessarily but it does appear that Exxon does a good job managing their business and I always thought that was desireable.
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