La Tribune, a French economic daily, tells its readers that the scarcity of gasoline upsets the reign of the automobile. In a dossier, it analyzes the ways to reduce the consumption of the automobile sector and the competitive advantages of the train.
The wish to “come closer” to the reader and to analyze the daily situation makes La Tribune forget that it is not about a crisis in the automobile sector but an oil crisis. It ignores, for example, that it also causes a price increase of fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. So, it not only involves the urban way of life but also the production methods, although it is true that the economic daily does not try to captivate the readers of the agricultural sector.
“Local approach” journalism is not compatible with the analysis of serious macro-economic problems. In reality, the scarcity of oil upsets our civilization.