Chris White Tech Reporter
January 30, 2020 3:39 PM ET
A popular podcast purporting to reveal the supposed propaganda propping up the oil industry is part of a journalism project designed to prod major media outlets into painting climate change as a crisis.
“Drilled” is depicted in the media as a podcast pursuing objective journalism that seeks to unmask what its host Amy Westervelt calls the public relations ploy driving big oil. But the podcast is also part of Covering Climate Now (CCN), a project some media outlets believe lacks objectivity.
Westervelt announced Drilled News in January, a reporting project run by her podcast network, Critical Frequency. Drilled News’s about page discloses the site’s participation in CCN while noting that the website brings together reporters who make their work available to news outlets.
The former environmental reporter has contributed work with The Guardian and The Washington Post, among other national newspapers, according to a Jan. 27 report from E&E News. The “Drilled” podcast itself is plowing through its third season, the report note
The third season looks “at how the fossil fuels industry leans on two levers to delay action on climate change,” Westervelt told E&E News, referring to what she believes is the oil industry’s layers of propaganda. “The first lever is pro-fossil fuel propaganda, and the second is climate science denial.”
Westervelt said the fossil fuel industry is fine-tuning its “propaganda machine.” Her group’s role in CCN comes as journalists consider making climate advocacy part of their mission.
CCN’s founders kicked off the project in April 2019 and announced in May of that year that they would ask partners to devote a week to climate-related news, starting in September 2019. The project was organized in part by Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), a nonprofit representing professional journalists.
The effort’s target was the lead-up to, and coverage of, the U.N. “Climate Action Summit,” held Sept. 15-23.
The Nation environmental correspondent Mark Hertsgaard co-founded the project under the assumption that modern media were not only underreporting what activists call the climate crisis but are also giving too much air time to the fossil fuel industry.
Most legacy media are unwilling to break away from the idea that journalism should not advocate for a position, according to Hertsgaard. (RELATED: Exclusive: Inside The Media Conspiracy To Hype Greta Thunberg)
“The New York Times is not on there, The Wall Street Journal is not on there, The Washington Post is not on there,” Hertsgaard said in a September 2019 podcast with Kyle Pope, editor and publisher of CJR. Hertsgaard was referring to the major outlets that did not contribute content to CCN.
“This has an aroma — in their minds — of activism,” Hertsgaard continued, explaining why the big three legacy outlets preferred not to join. He and Pope noted Covering Climate Now intends on breaking up that perception by wrapping climate coverage in the blanket of science rather than politics.
Neither Drilled News nor Covering Climate Now responded to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.
No link to “Drilled”?
“The project was organized in part by Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), a nonprofit representing professional journalists”
There it is!
Columbia University again!
There is something about Columbia.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/06/24/cjr/
Now that is funny!
And how many have they “outed”?
Zero, you say? Perhaps because there are no “big oil propagandists”?
Wacky is as wacky does.
Mark Hertsgaard is a malcontent, a scientific charlatan and an outright fraud. He may have a diagnosable anxiety disorder.
His father was a news reader in Baltimore who was notable for his bizarre ideas.
“…breaking up that perception by wrapping climate coverage in the blanket of science rather than politics.”
Impossible. Contradictory. If they are advocating the conclusion that climate change is a destructive, nigh end-of-the-world scenario, then it is pure advocacy and they will cherrypick whatever science supports their position.
I always wonder what these climate crusaders want the average citizen to do, while the crusaders daily drive and fly and heat and cool and turn on the lights, it is all so hypocritical.
re: “The Nation ”
Oh. The commie rag. (Hurricane) Katrina VanDenHueval (sp?) of The Nation used to be the token commie on ABC’s “This Week” with former Bill Clinton advisor George Stephanopolis (sp?) hosting (and before that, Christiana Amanpour (sp?)). Katrina was one committed commie, too. I enjoyed seeing her get enthusiastically ‘wound up’ on an issue!
One thing I’ve noticed with all conspiracy nuts. Lack of evidence is just proof of how strong the conspiracy is.
In this case, the fact that the major media outlets aren’t supporting her, is proof that they’re part of the conspiracy.
JOURNALISM ABANDONED ==> The Columbia Journalism Review has not only abandoned journalism itself, but it has created an anti-journalism cabal to promote Climate Alarmism.
A National Narrative for Media on Climate Change
Climate Catastrophe News Cabal Ramps Up
Insidious betrayal of all that journalism once stood for.
Here’s an article about it from the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA)…
It’s always been a mystery why the global warming fruitcakes decide to attack oil. Until cars go electric , there is an indispensible demand for oil based fuels. Also aircraft fuels. Also plastics, lubricants and tire manufacturing which willl still be indispensible after the fleet transforms to electric. Global warming alarmists are illogical all the way around.
I’m looking for the documentation that shows the cabal of media and activists, and Columbia University do all of there activities without use of carbon-based fuels and products therefrom. When they have reduced their “demand” to zero, the supply-side will take care if itself.
More nonsense.
The report of “billions of fossil fuel funding against climate change” turned out to be over a period of 30+ years. Even disregarding that the numbers derived from the entire PR budgets of the fossil fuel companies, the annualized spend is still less than the WWF, EDF, NRDC and Greenpeace annual budgets alone – much less the NOAA budget. While the entire NOAA budget isn’t devoted to climate partisanry, a significant part is and the overall annual budget is on par with the entire fossil fuel spend over the entire 30+ year period.
Has anyone ever seen a Chevon, Exxon or other “fossil fuel” company ad – on TV, in print, heard on the radio, seen on the internet – supporting denialism or even skepticism? I sure haven’t.
“… the public relations ploy driving big oil.”
However, the drug cartels do quite well without MSM advertising or public relations. It is the demand for something that rewards the suppliers. This is something that the likes of Amy Westervelt doesn’t understand. She should contemplate this while driving home from work.
Big Oil propaganda currently is facade of being green. Exxon commercials of algae biofuel. BP commercials advertise their wind farms, and if the wind isn’t blowing, they can provide backup energy from their clean natural gas turbines. Watching these commercials influence ordinary people to think low carbon business is a significant part of Big Oil, which it is not.
might be time Big Oil had a go at big Green?
a simple ad pointing out the daily products from our carpets upards every home uses that come from oils processing
its damned hard to afford anything NOT synthetic really for furnishings etc the pc phone shoe soles specs etc
even the toothbrush makeup remover etc
tell itlikeit is and upset them no end.
might be easier to just show a home and have the viewers try n spot the NON oil items really.
or show the REAL output from solar/shredders and then a power required to make steel/aluminium for the engine parts the leccy cars require;-) and carbon fibre/glass for panels. etc
Alarmists don’t even conceal their agenda anymore. Every aspect of life must be tightly controlled and anything anyone does, thinks or says must meet the approval of the new gods. Oh, you lack the imagination of what that could look like once it works as intended? Just take a peek into North Korea. That’s what it takes. Because people want to live and people with wishes and ambitions pollute the planet so those need to be suppressed. I just don’t think it’s going to get that far. People already start to feel the effects of this on their lives. Less money and higher costs. That’s not going to square for long.
The new libdems’ horizon is ‘de profundis’.
Their desperate uphill fight getting ever nastier and – dangerous for both sides.
https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-huawei&sxsrf=ACYBGNSYz3Fz_6yyEJMzB0Z59BjyjqNBtw%3A1581655702054&ei=liZGXs32Aq3nsAfe07DQDg&q=de+profundis+meaning&oq=de+profundis&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-serp.