Fascinating piece this morning from the weblog ThereIsaWay regarding this piece we were submitted last week—and ran without bias, because it was a press release, and you just don’t tamper with those in a straight article, although you can opine if it’s run in part as an opinion piece…which we did not do.
Here’s a portion of it, with links, and a ‘read more’ at the bottom so you can link directly to it and enjoy the rest:
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The Southern Illinoisan Gives Up On Journalism, Bends Over For Oil & Gas Industry
The Southern Illinoisan has a long running competition with the Belleville News-Democrat over which Illinois newspaper has the strongest bias in favor of the coal industry. So I was pleasantly surprised last year when I saw the Southern Illinoisan doing good reporting on the fracking issue, even giving frequent voice to the opposition. That changed.
A recent article in the Southern is so ridiculous, so over the top misleading, it looks like they’ve given up on doing real journalism about fracking.
Southern Illinoisans Against Fracturing our Environment (SAFE) sent out a press release last week full of facts and figures on worker safety problems in the fracking industry. Illinois’ weak fracking law doesn’t address the problem. The Southern fist responded with an article that gives more space to defensive responses from industry supporters than it does to citing facts and studies. That showed bias, but you won’t believe what they published next!
The Southern ran an article titled “Fracking workers: It’s safe, it’s good” with anecdotal stories from two workers in the industry who have witnessed non-fatal accidents at fracking sites in North Dakota. There was no mention of the fact that North Dakota now has the highest rate of deadly workplace accidents, thanks largely to the fracking industry.
The article is no different than running anecdotal stories about two heavy smokers who lived past age 90 and failing to mention studies linking cigarettes to cancer. If it didn’t hurt those two it must be safe, right? It’s not journalism. It’s propaganda.
Maybe tomorrow the Southern will feature an article about two people who haven’t been in deadly traffic accidents, so clearly all roads must be perfectly safe! Don’t worry about those pesky rumors and studies on how many people die in auto accidents each year.
The Southern published good coverage of issues related to fracking for a while. I’ve watched as their bias has grown more obvious. When hundreds of people attended the two southern Illinois public hearings on fracking, they scrubbed any mention of the repeated calls by multiple members of the public for non-violent civil disobedience to stop the industry. When Josh Fox spoke to a crowd of over 600 locals, they did no follow up story at all.
The paper has good reporters clearly capable of doing honest journalism. I hope their professional reputations aren’t irreparably damaged by the embarrassing decisions of their editors.
People were shocked earlier this year when two southern Illinois newspapers announced they were banning letters, articles, and even paid advertisements opposed to fracking. They instituted the blackout just weeks before the public voted on a local referendum to ban fracking. In a way, I have to respect the honesty of those papers admitting to their decision. It’s almost better than the Southern’s attempt to maintain the facade of an honest news organization….
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Please read ALL the articles and compare. If you aren’t educated to the dangers of fracking, get there. Because it IS a dangerous proposition, for all involved: those who are employed in it, true, but also—and most significantly, to anyone whose lives and/or livelihood is threatened by the REAL threat of unknown toxins in the “proprietary formulas” used in the chemical compounds used to dissolve and fracture the rock beneath the surface. Most of us get our water from groundwater supplies, whether we’re on a well at our homes or on a municipal water supply. Those are what’s in DANGER…from ongoing unregulated practices. So this is a real, valid concern. And mainstream media is stifling those, in favor of the big machine and of advertisers, but also of the hairy eyeball that comes from public officials, which they ultimately must appease or they don’t get their ‘news,’ which is for the most part spoon-fed to them because, as we’ve proven repeatedly, it’s hard to get information without a little bit of a battle sometimes. Nothing in life is free, and it isn’t easy. The battle to get out the truth about fracking is one of those things. Help us by liking and sharing this post on your social networking sites.