Monday, January 28, 2013
Interesting Choice
The Register-Star and the Daily Mail are running an Associated Press story today about the financial benefits to property owners from hydraulic fracturing: "Billions in gas drilling royalties transform lives." A search indicates that these papers seem never to have picked up any AP stories about the negative effects of fracking.
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When I worked at the Reg, I did in fact choose lots of stories about fracking for page A3 - the obituaries/state news page. Those stories generally don't go online, but the weekend editor chooses wire material for the Sunday and Monday online editions.
ReplyDeleteA3 is a common page for the Reg and the Daily Mail, and I was careful to choose region stories about protests and support for the drilling method. AP moves plenty of relevant fracking copy almost every day. I suppose you aren't a subscriber to the paper edition. I could get into the strange and perhaps questionable premise of not putting news that appears in the paper on the newspaper's website (especially when it's wire material, thus an easy grab), but I won't here.
Of all the places in Pennsylvania, to pick up an AP for pro fracking
ReplyDelete-Pittsburgh
Sept 2012
Pittsburgh C. C. Patrick Dowd is introducing legislation
that will repeal the city’s ban on hydro-fracking.
In an attempt to open the door to industry and undo the important precedent
set by Pittsburgh’s prohibition against this destructive and ecocidal practice,
Dowd has been speaking with other council members and the press
about his desire to reverse the ban on fracking.
........
12/1/10Pittsburgh Bans Hydrofracking
The Pittsburgh city council has passed a historic ordinance
-- the first of its kind in the nation -- banning corporations from hydrofracking
for natural gas within the city limits.
Pittsburgh sits atop the natural gas-rich Marcellus Shale formation,
and corporations have already bought leases to drill there
-- including underneath public parks and in cemeteries.
Hydrofracking threatens surface and groundwater,
and has been blamed for fatal explosions,
contaminated drinking water, and polluted rivers.
The hydrofracking process releases carcinogens
like benzene and radioactive ores like uranium, along with methane.....
The actions of the Pittsburgh city council starkly contrast
with the flaccid posture of the Pennsylvania
state government to hydrofracking regulation.
The state recently paid thousands of dollars to
a private contractor to investigate hydrofracking opponents.
In this year's Pennsylvania elections, hundreds of thousands of industry dollars
poured into the campaigns of pro-hydrofracking candidates.
Even as its towns and municipalities increasingly oppose hydrofracking,
the state continues to issue hydrofracking permits.
The hydrofracking industry has worked hand-in-glove with elected officials
and state and federal agencies to prepare the way for the controversial drilling technique
, exempting hydrofracking from federal regulation
and passing state laws barring municipalities from trying to regulate the practice.
The article from Pro Publica.
These Columbia and Greene County newspapers made an odd choice running the story at all.
ReplyDeleteI'd quibble with some of the claims (e.g. how royalties really work), but on content alone the story is local news from somewhere else.