Categories: OLD Media Moves

The difference in covering Exxon's profits

The Media Research Center, which exposes the “liberal” bias in the media, takes aim at recent coverage of Exxon’s second-quarter profits on the networks’ nightly news shows.

It wrote, “ABC’s World News with Charles Gibson on Thursday night hyperventilated over ‘breathtaking profits’ for ExxonMobil which ‘you paid for…at the pump,’ how the company made ‘more in 30 seconds than many families earn in a year’ and how ‘just’ $4 billion went to exploration while $6 billion went to ‘enriching’ shareholders. But ABC never cited the company’s quarterly profit number — which at $10 billion matches $4 billion plus $6 billion and means 40 percent went for exploration.”

Later, it noted, “NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams cited ‘jaw-dropping profits’ and how for ExxonMobil that ‘translates to about $79,000 a minute in profit,’ but at least he informed viewers of the actual dollar figure:

“‘Second quarter earnings reports have been coming out all week and oil companies have been reporting more jaw-dropping profits. Today the big daddy of them all, ExxonMobil, reported a profit of ten billion, 360 million dollars. That is the second highest profit on record. First place, by the way, belongs to ExxonMobil’s own profit from the last quarter of last year. By the way, that translates to about $79,000 a minute in profit.'”

“CBS Evening News anchor Bob Schieffer refrained from such silly per-minute comparisons.”