Fox News

On Monday night (9/26/2005), I was quite disappointed by a segment on the Boston 10pm local news (Fox25).

The reporters interviewed several Boston-area drivers about President Bush’s statement regarding “non-essential” driving. One female driver was asked whether going to the gym was essential or non-essential driving. She answered “essential.” A male driver was asked whether going out for a pizza was essential or non-essential. He answered “Essential, well, no, that can be delivered.” I’m not sure if any one else noticed, but most restaurants that offer delivery in Boston deliver via automobile. Each person interviewed had more or less the same opinion about driving: it’s all essential. This was echoed by the anchors.

This is irresponsible reporting for a number of reasons:

1. It is not a balanced view of the Bostonian population and while I’m sure it was not meant to be statistically accurate, I think it is fair to say that it was extremely one-sided. I know for a fact that only 8 out of 30 of my colleagues drive even part way to work. Of those 8, 7 use their car for only part of the commute. This is not because we all live in the Back Bay. Even when you look at miles traveled, car travel only constitutes approximately 24% of my company’s total work-related travel on average. Twenty-two of the employees polled at my office (73%) never drive to work. If you ask me, getting to work is pretty essential, so if we’re not using cars for even that part of our lives, I think it’s safe to say that a lot of driving is considered non-essential by my colleagues in general and that a fair number of people in this city agree with that. In a city where public transportation is good, quite a few people view many trips as non-essential driving.


2. The broadcast portrayed Bush’s statement as the administration telling us what to do. No, the administration, for once, was doing the responsible thing and asking the American population to participate in a community effort to work on the fuel supply. With good reason and much evidence, the recent violent hurricanes have been attributed to global warming. Car emissions contribute to this. So, instead of relaxing laws over emissions standards, as Bush initially did in the wake of the Katrina disaster, he along with his administration, was finally taking a more measured step and asked American citizens to curb their consumption. This of course was in response to the more immediate need involving disabled and destroyed refineries, but it was still in the right direction toward a more sustainable relationship between humans and oil.


3. The broadcast also broke any tie the viewer might have to his or her community and encouraged a dog-eat-dog mentality. Perhaps Fox News does not agree that community is important, but encouraging people to take and consume over conserving for the good of the whole is, in my opinion, irresponsible.

Perhaps the report was tongue-in-cheek, but it did not appear to be so. Bush’s delivery of the idea was clumsily fumbled, so I can see the humor. The text of his speech to which this refers is below, as transcribed. Not only are half of the sentences grammatically incorrect, but it also doesn’t say much. It says “we can encourage employees” and “we can shift peak electricity” and “There’s [sic] ways for the federal government to lead”. It does not say “we will encourage”, “we will shift” or “These are the ways in which the federal government will lead.” So I can see why Fox News would make a joke about it. If that is the case, I think it could have been more clearly presented as a joke.

Thank you for considering my response.

Regards,

Motley Princess (I used my real name in the letter. I'm already non-anonymous enough on the internet. I don't need to use the name here.)

The text from President Bush’s speech on September 26th to which I refer is found here. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/09/20050926.html “Two other points I want to make is, one, we can all pitch in by using -- by being better conservers of energy. I mean, people just need to recognize that the storms have caused disruption and that if they're able to maybe not drive when they -- on a trip that's not essential, that would helpful. The federal government can help, and I've directed the federal agencies nationwide -- and here's some ways we can help. We can curtail nonessential travel. If it makes sense for the citizen out there to curtail nonessential travel, it darn sure makes sense for federal employees. We can encourage employees to carpool or use mass transit. And we can shift peak electricity use to off-peak hours. There's ways for the federal government to lead when it comes to conservation.”