A newspaper can tuck oil into a commodity box and then write the inflation story as if the basket were abstract. The basket includes energy. Freight includes fuel. A factory includes power. The spot price is one public number sitting upstream of those costs.
Upstream is not the same as instant. Pass-through takes time and is uneven, which is why a one-day move in Cushing crude is not a CPI print. The connection is real enough to deserve a section, and loose enough to require dates.