What happens when you take a city still tense from the residual emotions of a natural disaster and start talking about gasoline prices?You have a story.All forms of mass communication — radio, TV or print — have always been driven by the market economy that demands money by way of advertising revenues to power up the transmitter or run the presses.In that light, it’s understandable the news that “makes it” is not always determined by altruism, but rather, by how many people will hear or read it. Every traditional media form needs to make money, even for columnists at The Daily Reveille.Let’s face it — fear sells. Whether it’s talking about a triple murder or lead in children’s toys, appealing to the human emotion of fear has proven to be a big money maker.If you had tuned in to WJBO last Thursday you would have been one of the many listeners who witnessed how a sensational story is spawned out of emotions like fear.As part of the “continuing coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Gustav,” the radio station had a whopper of a story to pass on to its listeners. The broadcaster said some experts were predicting the price of gas to rise to $5 per gallon overnight as a result of the impending landfall of Hurricane Ike, according to WAFB’s Web site.While he admitted that he had yet to actually read the article — always a good idea when breaking news over the air — it really didn’t matter because the report itself was based on loose information.The WAFB report cited unnamed sources and a Web site called Fuel Prophet to make its claim. The report also ran on the television stations evening broadcast.Predictably, a lot of gasoline was sold Thursday. After hearing the news — many through word of mouth — motorists from around the listening area went out in a mad dash to fill up their tanks to avoid the impending doom. Stations across town scrambled to provide for the sudden upshot of demand that had taken them completely by surprise.  Later in the day, WAFB’s Web site began to back track, eventually saying gas prices were expected to rise but not by as much as previously reported. Apparently there was little substance to the initial claim.The average price of gas in Louisiana increased by roughly two cents the next day — nowhere near the $1.40 up tick the story originally led with.Headlines by their very nature are what get tossed around through the grapevine of the city. The initial story WAFB reported was about something that affects everybody. There’s no surprise why word quickly spread around town.When a headline is patently false — or as in this case only half the story — it should come as no surprise when the quick dissemination of knowledge translates to panic.Headlines are meant to be airtight statements that communicate the gist of a story. We communicate among each other in headlines. The WAFB story headline read: “SOURCES: GAS COULD REACH $5 A GALLON BY FRIDAY MORNING,” according to a Google search.By the way it was presented, the audience should have been able to trust the “sources” mentioned were knowledgeable about the serious claim being made. It wouldn’t matter if there was a single paragraph, or an entire page, airing caution to the claim. Ultimately the headline becomes the news.The media, through it’s reporting, also tells us many times what is important. When someone takes the time to read the headline of a report over the radio, it instantly carries more weight to it. The same goes for breaking updates on Web sites.  A combination of an alarmist headline and an urgent delivery appear to be symptoms of an overly excited local media. During the past few weeks their audience swelled as multiple outlets sought to provide us with all angles of the storm stories.Without a doubt, the recent spate of storms threatening the Gulf Coast has been empowering to our local news outlets. Unfortunately, it appears this empowerment caused a loss of control.The problem wasn’t that our local media continued to milk the hurricane stories for all they were worth. Rather the problem was the issue snowballed into a sensational story that lacked fundamental substance.There’s criticism to be had when stories are built using the emotional response of the combination of disaster and gas. In this case, WAFB’s report brought back the same anxieties that have coincided with the last weeks as a result of storms — namely shortages of essential resources people need to live day to day.Many of those fleeing from Hurricane Ike were greeted by the pandemonium created by the fuel scare. After all this region has been through in the past weeks, it would have been nice to avoid unnecessary commotion because of exaggeration and eagerness to tell an untrue story.—-contact Mark MacMurdo at [email protected]