Excellent subject, HO, I'm glad you brought it up. I'm posting this upthread since very little of the discussion below was actually about the media's failure to ask tough questions. Here are three articles for your consideration:

The Speculation Explanation: Framing the Energy Crisis - AlterNet, June 28

If you scroll about halfway down, past the **** separator, he gets into a smart discussion about framing (referencing George Lakoff's work, of which I am a huge fan) and how the media has deliberately used the speculation frame to deflect attention away from the real problems with energy.

Faustian economics: Hell hath no limits - By Wendell Berry - Harper's Magazine, May 2008

A typically excellent essay from Berry on the "doctrine of limitlessness."

Peak Oil Confusion - A Game Whose Time Is Up

My new article, which takes Investor's Business Daily to task for its truly awful May editorial on peak oil, in which I assert that they are deliberately distorting the issue.

thanks for the plug - sorry u didn't like the first half