It is all too easy to blame the media.
Sports stars, in particular, and politicans are often guilty of saying "it's all the media's fault" when, usually, they are the one's perpetuating the stories in the first place.
Now and again, however, the media is guilty as charged, the so-called petrol 'crisis' this week being a prime example.
Every time I switch on the TV I have a news reporter telling me about panic buying and a fuel crisis - yet I haven't seen a single queue at a petrol station or any closures over the past few days.
Is there really a spate of panic buying at the pumps? Or do the news hounds just wish there was?
Without dumping on some of my fellow journalists, this is where I think 24 hour news falls down.
Sky News, the BBC, etc.. have so much airtime to fill that they feel obliged to talk up stories that, well, aren't really stories.
