On Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) held a public hearing in downtown Pittsburgh on their proposed rules to limit methane emissions from oil and gas drilling. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas—84 times more potent than CO2—and a major contributor to heart and lung diseases. This was only one of three such hearings—the other two were in Denver and Dallas—so it was a pretty big deal. It’s also symbolically important since it was held in Pennsylvania, whose state government is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the natural gas industry, and in Pittsburgh, the epicenter of the fossil fuel companies’ latest “sacrifice zone.”
Two days later, an email from PennFuture, a statewide environmental nonprofit, stated that those who testified in favor of the new rules outnumbered opponents by 92-2! This was a surprise to me since I had read a newspaper account of the hearing (in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) and had no idea the distribution of presenters was so one-sided.
If you’ve read this blog before, you know that false balancing is one of my pet peeves. False balancing occurs when the media, following the journalistic norm of presenting both sides of an issue, give the false impression that there is an equal amount of evidence—or as in this case, there are an equal number of citizens—supporting each side. The classic example is news coverage of global warming, which for many years implicitly suggested that an approximately equal number of scientific experts believed or questioned that the climate was changing.
I located four articles about the hearings in the Post-Gazette, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the Observer-Reporter (Washington County) and StateImpact PA. The Harrisburg Patriot-News had an article about methane leakage that day, but did not cover the hearing. I found no coverage in the national media.
The Tribune-Review led with a headline implying balance: “EPA officials hear from supporters, opponents of methane emissions rules.” Two opponents of the EPA rules, Matthew Todd, senior policy advisor for the American Petroleum Institute, and Eric Cowden, outreach director of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, were quoted at length, but with no indication that they were only two opponents present. Three supporters of the rules were quoted by name. The article correctly stated that about 100 speakers testified and said that representatives of a dozen environmental groups spoke. In all, there were 180 words of coverage of testimony by opponents of the EPA rules and 188 words of coverage of supporters.
The headline of the Observer-Reporter read “EPA hears pros, cons of its proposed methane reduction rules,” again implying balance. They noted that the were 100 speakers and that “environmental and oil and gas industry groups provided widely diverse views.” But their coverage was unbalanced. There were 366 words summarizing Mr. Todd and Mr. Cowden’s testimony, and 155 words about the presentations of two environmental group representatives.
“EPA hears comments on proposed methane rule for oil and gas” was the headline of the StateImpact PA article. The article contained quite a bit of neutral exposition, including an explanation of the rules by David Cozzie of the EPA, who may have been the moderator. They then devoted 170 words to comments by Mr. Todd and Mr. Cowden and 260 words to comments by three supporters of the rules, two of whom were representatives of PA’s Department of Enviromental Protection.
The Post-Gazette‘s article on their website differs from the one in the paper. That may be the case with some of the other articles as well, but this was my only chance to make a comparison. The headline in the newspaper reads “EPA rules find support at hearing.” Reporter Don Hopey compared the number of supporters and opponents and noted in the first paragraph that “most of the 100 or so who testified” supported the EPA rules. He devoted 86 words to the testimony of two supporters and 86 words to a summary of Mr. Cowden’s testimony. The word count in the website article was supporters, 153, and opponents, 92. It had a neutral headline and didn’t indicate which side had the greater number of speakers.
The overall average was 200 words by or about opponents of the rules and 172 words by or about supporters. The only opponents quoted by name, of course, were the two energy industry employees. If you read all four articles, you might deduce that they were the only opponents present. The four articles quoted various different supporters by name. Some were representatives of environmental groups and others were identified as private citizens with no organizational affiliation given. However, only the Post-Gazette article indicated that supporters were in the majority, and none of them stated how large that majority was. I would argue that the lopsided distribution of opponents and supporters was the most newsworthy item and should have been the lead of any article about the hearing.
I will grant that turning out 92 people to testify at a hearing on a Tuesday morning is not a great accomplishment, and only shows that the environmentalists were better organized and more highly motivated. It gives no indication of the distribution of public opinion in the area, where it’s likely that few citizens realize the importance of methane leakage. I also acknowledge that the oil and gas industries could have turned out just as many people friendly to their position if they had been willing to spend the time and effort. However, public opinion is less important for them. Their success depends primarily on the amount of money they spend on campaign contributions and lobbying. Of course, it also helps that they have the news media in their pockets.