Consumer Confidential: Baby Einstein, gas prices and newspapers

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Here’s your make-my-Monday roundup of consumer news from around the Web:

--Turns out playing ‘Baby Einstein’ videos for your toddler isn’t so smart after all. So Disney is offering refunds to anyone who bought one of the videos between June 2004 and September 2009. Some parents and consumer advocates have been saying for years that the DVDs are little more than marketing tools that target babies and play no demonstrable role in improving cognitive skills. A Disney official blasted such criticism as ‘extreme.’ Nevertheless, the company is doing the right thing by letting parents off the hook.

--Like you needed something else to worry about: Retail gas prices are on the rise, raising fears that higher costs at the pump will slow the economic recovery this holiday season. The average gas price nationwide is up 20 cents over the last couple of weeks to $2.671 a gallon. That matches the peak set during the summer driving season, indicating that rising oil prices will keep pushing pump prices northward.

--There may never have been greater demand for information, but it’s clear that fewer and fewer people want it from (ahem) newspapers. The Audit Bureau of Circulations says the average daily circulation of newspapers dropped by another 10.6% in the April-September period -- more than twice the decline of the same period last year. Consumer-themed blogs, meanwhile, showed surprising growth and vitality, raising the likelihood that the people who write daily roundups are in line for fabulous bonuses and raises. I wish.

-- David Lazarus