Plunging and Plummeting! Watch Out!

Item: Since July, the price of oil has declined from $77 to $61 a barrel, a drop of 21% in about three months.

Item: In the same three months, the phrase “Oil Prices Plunge” (defined as “fall suddenly or uncontrollably”) has been used 33,100 times to report this decline, according to a Google search. “Oil Prices Plummet” (defined as “fall straight down”) has been used 791 times.

A 21% drop in oil prices is significant and substantial. But it is neither uncontrollable, sudden nor straight down.

Usually the use of over-dramatic language in news stories is blamed on a headline-seeking, sensationalistic press. But there are a couple other things going on.

The drama often originates, or is encouraged, at the source. For oil prices, the press is talking to the people who closely follow oil price movements--futures traders and speculators who stand to gain or lose lots of money when the oil price moves just slightly up or down. When the price moves the way it has over the last few months, many of these people have either made or lost a huge amount of money. To them, a 21% price drop over three months is the biggest news imaginable.

The other reason big drama gets added to rather mundane facts like this (let’s face it, oil prices are boring) is that it is crying for attention in competition with a million other bits of information and personalities.