Originally published at: Comedian perfectly recreates the formulaic local TV news story about high gas prices | Boing Boing
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Americans, every time something spikes gas prices: “Let’s drive the most monstrous, fuel-inefficient vehicles in the world, then complain about our subsidized gas prices (that are still not as high as the rest of the developed world’s normal gas prices)!”
Every person driving an SUV or giant truck complaining about gas prices makes me want to smack them.
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You’re certainly not wrong. I was blown away by fuel prices abroad; that info SHOULD put things in perspective for people, but almost certainly won’t. 
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Shockingly, the vast majority of Americans are willing to take a hit at the pump to support Ukraine and further isolate Russia. Where was this sense of personal sacrifice the past two years, people?
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I think Americans a) know nothing about other countries, much less their fuel prices, b) don’t realize how subsidized fuel prices are here, and c) think that America is special and it’s their right to drive fuel-inefficient tanks* with cheap gas.
*Fairly literally:
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A nice touch here is the lack of a reporter’s stand-up. For a story like this you send an intern or junior producer and a videographer down the street to get the gas station B-roll shots, have them get a couple of quick man-in-the-street interviews at the pumps, then back to the newsroom to hand it to a writer and editor to put it all together for an anchor read. I was usually the writer because after a while they learned I could bang the whole hackneyed story out on the keyboard in 5 minutes.
One of the many reasons I got bored of the TV news biz and moved on.
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Maybe shoot it on a tablet/phone with a high-end camera, too.
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“I just don’t know how I’m going to drive 30 minutes from the suburbs in my V12 Ford F9000 with these gas prices. It gets 4gal/mile and I’m out of ideas…”
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As an American, I can confirm items A and B apply to a large portion of the populace pretty confidently based on darn near everyone I meet.
Regarding C, I feel like there’s a lot more nuance to why people pick larger vehicles than just “it’s my right.” For example, my Mom has been driving SUVs for something like 30yrs at this point, starting with Jeep Grand Cherokees iirc. For her, the height from the ride is the selling point, and as you say gas prices have traditionally been pretty dang cheap here in the States, so the cost of fuel hasn’t been a deterrent in vehicle choice.
That said, there are absolutely the ijits who DO demonstrate your point and who buy the biggest dang truck they can, pull all the restrictors off, and belch the biggest plumes of black smoke they can (a will never understand the “rolling coal thing”), and I am nearly certain those same trucks will never see terrain more uneven than their front lawns where it will get parked once it breaks down.
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I was doing it in the pre-digital days of tape, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they do it as you describe now. Either way it’s not a story they’re going to waste an actual reporter’s time on.
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Yeah, I’ve seen some “local interest” stories done on iPads.
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I was in one of these once. I happened to be walking to work at the time because my work was 2 miles away and I enjoyed the walk. My wife knew a TV reporter and she asked if she could film us for her story. They actually filmed me walking home and claimed that I walked because I could not afford to drive due to the rising prices.
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Here in Germany it is over $10/gallon in places. The average is about $9.40.
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Imma just leave this here. You’re welcome:
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Gee, and I thought gas in the United States was expensive, look at the signs in Canada and Europe.
(Oh, those prices are for liters of petrol, and not gallons.)
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I’d say the b-roll was too high-quality. When I force myself to watch an entire “news” piece, the b-roll usually loops multiple times over the course of the segment.
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Jeanne Moos has been the platonic ideal of this mode of reporting for 34 years at CNN. 34 years!
My heart has been blackened by the hate tumor I’ve carried so long for her.
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