News Media Hype and the Price of Gas

“[The news media] should not subtract from the public’s understanding. Yet subtract they nowadays do with endless headlines and talk about ‘record’ oil and gasoline prices. For example, a recent headline in the Financial Times proclaimed: ‘New York investors take flight after price of oil hits record high.’ But the story’s fifth paragraph read: ‘West Texas Intermediate for September delivery settled $1.83 higher at $64.90 a barrel - a new nominal (see Word to the Wise, below) record ...’ The real meaning of the word ‘nominal’ is: ‘The headline you just read is rubbish.’ As was the next day’s page-one headline - ‘Oil price hits $66 for a fourth record of the week’ - which was nullified by the story’s first words: ‘Oil prices yesterday broke their fourth consecutive nominal record for the week ...’

“For the price of oil - not in nominal dollars but real, inflation-adjusted dollars - to surpass the record set in January 1981, it would have to be $86.72 per barrel.”

- George F. Will , writing in Newsweek