Hard News Story

Hard News Story PG2

Feature Story

pg 2

pg 3

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peer edits

Molly Deziekan
Kiersten Krause

Pre questions

1.    What is a problem/issue that our entire student body (our school, community, country, etc.) faces today? The government being corrupted

2. What is your view/position on the problem or situation?

I believe that the government could be very corrupt but I feel like the government doesn’t give us the whole story

3. What would you like to achieve with your editorial? (What is the desired result?)
to make people aware of how corrupt the government is
4. How will you persuade your audience to adopt your viewpoint as theirs? List at least 4 persuasive points.

Giving hard evidence

Presenting situations where the whole story wasn’t given.

The president giving conflicting statements

Corruption in Congress

5. How will you motivate your readership to action in your conclusion?

6. How will your editorial serve a public purpose?to make people aware of what is going on in the government

Feature story final

In today’s economy everything is becoming more and more difficult to buy. Everyone, no matter what area of life they are in, is starting to feel the pain. While everything is increasing in price,  gas is no different. And while all of us still have to swallow the price it would be nice to know that gas companies are feeling the same economic stress that all of us are feeling. Sadly, it appears that this is not the case.

According to the Wall Street Journal in an interview with Barack Obama “The attorney general is putting together a team whose job it is to root out any cases of fraud or manipulation in the oil markets that might affect gas prices, and that includes the role of traders and speculators.” The job of this task force in short is to make sure that gas companies don’t take advantage of certain situations that may arise in the Middle East, and raise prices on gas due to those situations even when the price per barrel doesn’t increase.

We all have realized that the prices at the pump are continuously on the rise, but what some of us may not realize is that gas companies are filing record highs this year and last. According to Seekingalpha.com Exxon Mobile reported that their first quarter profits went up a whopping 69% to 10.7 billion dollars from the same quarter one year ago. And this happening when we all thought the price per barrel was going up, so how can one of the largest gasoline and oil companies in the world be pushing record high profits?

 The government is thinking  that gas companies are recognizing that when there are conflicts in the Middle East their initial thoughts are “gas prices are going to go up” and gas companies are taking advantage of this by raising the prices even if the price per barrel doesn’t go up.

In interviews with other major gas companies, they are claiming that their profits are due mainly to the huge increase in crude oil, but we as consumers are still scratching our heads trying to figure out how that works. There is much debate among consumers on what the company’s justification is and how that differs from their thoughts.

In interviews with officials at Eastview High School people were saying that “gas companies have limits as to how high their price can be, but many times that max price is set above what the cost of a barrel of oil cost making it possible for gas companies to have record high profits for the year”.  Then, in another interview it was stated that gas companies are just “greedy”.

While some of us are affected more by the rising gas prices all of us feel the effects elsewhere. Food is becoming increasingly expensive, and not due to shortages in the food but mainly due to the raising costs to ship the food. And we’re also feeling it in flight as well. While the price of gasoline increases, the price of jet fuel is also rising. When I, personally had to take a flight to Europe not that long ago, at the last minute (two weeks before I left) the airline contacted me saying that there was going to be a new fuel fee that was going to be added to my ticket cost and if I wanted to fly with them this fee had to be paid before I took off. This new stressor on jet fuel has many companies in a panic and in financial trouble because they aren’t able to send as many employees on as many business related trips. Which means that some vital elements of their business, such as those that take place over seas, are becoming more  difficult to manage. This new effect may have a positive outlook on Americans however. This means that more jobs are going to be localized and there will be less need to depend on foreign operations. And at the same time this means less travel and less need for jet fuel.

One thing that also has Americans questioning our oil prices is the nation’s oil reserve. This reserve holds enough crude oil to meet the nation’s needs for up to 75 days. Using this resource that we have could reduce gas prices significantly and possibly save the U.S from going into a deeper recession. However according to The Week magazine it is stated that this action is not yet needed but may become a need in the very near future. “Barack Obama has been addressing this issue however has taken no action in that direction quite yet,” The Week .

Another thing that may help reduce our oil crisis is this so called “untapped oil” source found in oil shale in Wyoming and in Colorado. This shale is a type of sedimentary rock and could possibly hold up to 1 trillion barrels worth of crude oil and could reduce our dependency on foreign nations for oil significantly. This research is still being done but could reveal a huge change in American lives very soon.

When asked if gas companies should be allowed to have such record high profits this year there were two answers. Yes, and no. some people said that the companies don’t control the prices and others said that there are people having to choose between working and eating due to the fact that they can’t afford to drive themselves to work. And while it is a gray area on whether or not gas companies are raising prices for their own gain or just because their so called quotas are being raised it does not take away from the fact that there could potentially be unnecessary price rising.

Another angle that some are taking on this is “is the conflict in the middle east really affecting our gas prices?” well the answer to this question many times is “I don’t know”.  While we all know that much of our nation’s oil comes from distributors in the Middle East many of us aren’t aware of how much our price at the pump is affected by that. In fact the U.S maintains control of these distributors in the Middle East and that these countries in the Middle East are compliant and work with American officials to keep prices down. So why do our prices continue to sky rocket if this is the case? Well there is one word that comes to mind when I am asked this question,greed. Gas companies are taking advantage of these conflicts in the Middle East. And as  stated before people have this mindset that when there is a conflict in the Middle East people always divert to the thought that there should be a rise in gas price.  While companies take high advantage of that thought pattern and raise prices. In short we as consumers are paying higher prices at the pump just for our thoughts, and we are paying heavily.

Overall, the conflict with gas prices is one that is not going to solve itself. Everything that can be done is being done to lower our prices at the pump and to keep gas companies from swindling us out of our wallets. Barack Obama is playing out different scenarios on how we can use alternative fuel sources and even see about tapping into our oil reserve and even start drilling for oil shale in the Midwest states. That in and of itself could save this nation millions of dollars in gas and take away our dependency on foreign nations for our oil and lessen the chance of our nation going back into a deep recession.

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Feature Story DRAFT

In today’s economy everything is becoming more and more difficult to buy. And everyone, no matter what area of life they are in is starting to feel the pain. While everything is increasing in price gas is no different. And while all of us still have to swallow the price it would be nice to know that gas companies are feeling the same economic stress that all of us are feeling. Sadly it appears that this is not the case.

According to the Wall Street Journal in an interview with Barack Obama “The attorney general is putting together a team whose job it is to root out any cases of fraud or manipulation in the oil markets that might affect gas prices, and that includes the role of traders and speculators.” The job of this task force in short is to make sure that gas companies don’t take advantage of certain situations that may arise in the Middle East, and raise prices on gas due to those situations even when the price per barrel doesn’t increase.

We all have realized that the prices at the pump are continuously on the rise but what some of us may not realize is that gas companies are filing record highs this year and last. According to Seekingalpha.com Exxon Mobile reported that their first quarter profits went up a whopping 69% to 10.7 billion dollars from the same quarter one year ago. And this happening when we all thought the price per barrel was going up, so how can one of the largest gasoline and oil companies in the world be pushing record high profits?

Some of what the government is thinking is that gas companies are recognizing that when there are conflicts in the Middle East their initial thoughts are “gas prices are going to go up” and gas companies are taking advantage of this by raising the prices even if the price per barrel doesn’t go up.

In interviews with other major gas companies, they are claiming that their profits are due mainly to the huge increase in crude oil but we as consumers are still scratching our heads trying to figure out how that works. There is much debate among consumers on what the company’s justification is and how that differs from their thoughts.

In interviews with officials at Eastview High School people were saying that “gas companies have limits as to how high their price can be but many times that max price is set above what the cost of a barrel of oil cost making it possible for gas companies to have record high profits for the year”. And in another interview it was stated that gas companies are just “greedy”.

While some of us are affected more by the rising gas prices all of us feel the effects elsewhere. Food is becoming increasingly expensive, and not due to shortages in the food but mainly due to the raising costs to ship the food. And we’re also feeling it in flight as well. While the price of gasoline increases, the price of jet fuel is also rising. For me personally when I had to take a flight to Europe not that long ago, at the last minute (two weeks before I left) the airline contacted me saying that there was going to be a new fuel fee that was going to be added to my ticket cost and if I wanted to fly with them this fee had to be paid before I took off. This new stressor on jet fuel has many companies in a panic and in financial trouble because they aren’t able to send as many employees on as many business related trips. Which means that some vital elements of their business, such as those that take place over seas, are becoming more and more difficult to manage, This new effect may have a positive outlook on Americans however. This means that more jobs are going to be localized and there will be less need to depend on foreign operations. And at the same time this means less travel and less need for jet fuel.

One thing that also has Americans questioning our oil prices is the nation’s oil reserve. This reserve holds enough crude oil to meet the nation’s needs for up to 75 days. Using this resource that we have could reduce gas prices significantly and possibly save the U.S from going into a deeper recession. However according to The Week magazine it is stated that this action is not yet needed but may become a need in the very near future. “Barack Obama has been addressing this issue however has taken no action in that direction quite yet.” The Week

Another thing that may help reduce our oil crisis is this so called “untapped oil” source found in oil shale in Wyoming and in Colorado. This shale is a type of sedimentary rock and could possibly hold up to 1 trillion barrels worth of crude oil and could reduce our dependency on foreign nations for oil significantly. This research is still being done but could reveal a huge change in American lives very soon.

When asked if gas companies should be allowed to have such record high profits this year there were two answers. Yes, and no. some people said that the companies don’t control the prices and others said that there are people having to choose between working and eating due to the fact that they can’t afford to drive themselves to work. And while it is a gray area on whether or not gas companies are raising prices for their own gain or just because their so called quotas are being raised it does not take away from the fact that there could potentially be unnecessary price rising.

Another angle that some are taking on this is “is the conflict in the middle east really affecting our gas prices?” well the answer to this question many times is “I don’t know”.  While we all know that much of our nation’s oil comes from distributors in the Middle East many of us aren’t aware of how much our price at the pump is affected by that. In fact the U.S maintains control of these distributors in the Middle East and that these countries in the Middle East are compliant and work with American officials to keep prices down. So why do our prices continue to sky rocket if this is the case? Well there is one word that comes to mind when I am asked this question. Greed. Gas companies are taking advantage of these conflicts in the Middle East. And as was stated before people have this mindset that when there is a conflict in the Middle East people always divert to the thought that there should be a rise in gas price. And companies take high advantage of that thought pattern and raise prices. In short we as consumers are paying higher prices at the pump just for our thoughts, and we are paying heavily.

Overall the conflict with gas prices is one that is not going to solve itself. Everything that can be done is being done to lower our prices at the pump and to keep gas companies from swindling us out of our wallets. Barack Obama is playing out different scenarios on how we can use alternative fuel sources and even see about tapping into our oil reserve and even start drilling for oil shale in the Midwest states. That in and of itself could save this nation millions of dollars in gas and take away our dependency on foreign nations for our oil and lessen the chance of our nation going back into a deep recession.

Feature Story Interview Questions

1) How do the rising gas prices affect you?

2) Do you think it's fair that the president is commenting on how high the gas prices are when he doesn't pay for gas himself?

3) Do you think its fair that gas companies are filing record high profits for this year?

4) Why do you think these gas companies can file such record highs? what do you think their justification is?

Feature Story

Gas prices and Gas company profits made