We noted last week that the PBS NewsHour‘s coverageof the Gulf oil disaster one night includeda one-on-one interview with a spokesperson from BP. Going through the show’s coverage since then, a remarkable fact emerged: The show hadnot interviewed an environmental advocate opposed to the White House plan to increase offshore oil drilling. The reticence to talk about this obvious policy angle was bizarre–though not at all limited to PBS.
Well, last night the NewsHour hosted a debate between Greenpeace’s Kert Davies and Sara Banaszak of the American Petroleum Institute. So let the record show that the NewsHour has opened up a tiny bit of space for that discussion to happen.
And it’s an improvement over the comments by PBS liberal Mark Shields, who on April 30 was lamenting the fact that the current spill might set back the effort to increase offshore drilling: “The resistance on the environmental left to offshore drilling, I think, had diminished at the time the president came forward, because of the advances in safety equipment and strategies.”
That wasn’t really the case; the environmental groups that opposed offshore drilling continued to oppose it, no matter what Barack Obama thought of the idea. It’s good that PBS is letting its viewers in on that now.
The technology of extraction and oil companies’ profit-making imperative will always outpace the development and use of spill-prevention technology. For these reasons, the safety of offshore oil rigs will never be adequate, and offshore drilling must continue to be prohibited. There are alternatives to oil consistent with our national defense and domestic energy needs–all that is missing is the national will to accelerate the implementation of these alternatives rather than yield to the pressures and distortions of an industry running on fumes.
In that “debate” between Kert Davies and Sara Banaszak, and Davies really did well. Having it on somewhat restored my faith in PBS.
BP has NEVER been seriously punished for any of it’s previous law breaking or probation violations. (and there are oh sooo many) No one at BP (or ANY other oil corp. for that matter) ever went to jail for the swath of human death, economic and environmental destruction they have wreaked on this planet, for decades. Their actions are those of a Terrorist Organization, by any description! There will be no need of energy of any kind in a world ravaged and left uninhabitable by the terror of the fosil fuel empire. BP earns roughly 600 billion or so every 3 months. The piddling fines they have paid out, which is all our Government can muster up as punishment, are part of their operating costs. You won’t hear any of this on NPR though. I wonder just how much BP “donates” to keep this discussion off the ” public” station.
I hold very little hope that the News Hour will ever redeem their credibility. Any commitment to real journalism or providing alternative views to subscribers died long ago. Now they take their Monsanto money and redecorate.
Chevron is one of their corporate funders. Follow the money.
Peter Hart and those who’ve replied to his “Drilling” of PBS and the NewsHour haven’t done their fact-checking homework. In it he says in part:
“We noted last week that the PBS NewsHour’s coverage of the Gulf oil disaster one night included a one-on-one interview with a spokesperson from BP. Going through the show’s coverage since then, a remarkable fact emerged: The show had NOT interviewed an environmental advocate opposed to the White House plan to increase offshore oil drilling. The reticence to talk about this obvious policy angle was bizarre–though not at all limited to PBS.” [Emphasis added]
–That’s misleading: On 3/31/10, the day the White House plan was announced, the NewsHour aired two pieces in which Phil Radford, the executive director of Greenpeace USA, and Democratic Senator Benjamin Cardin of Maryland strongly criticized the plan.
From the piece entitled “Obama Proposes Lifting Coastal U.S. Drilling Bans”:
“KWAME HOLMAN: In response, a spokesman for the environmental group Greenpeace called it a disappointment.
“I think it’s a real let down, and I think it’s a betrayal of people that voted against ‘Drill, baby, drill’ and for President Obama’s vision of a clean-energy future.”
From the piece entitled “Obama Eyes Energy Development in Drilling Plan; Opponents Point to Alternatives”
“JEFFREY BROWN: What is your chief objection to this?
“SEN. BENJAMIN CARDIN: Well, I think Secretary Salazar is right. There are places that are too special to risk offshore drilling.
“I’m disappointed that he didn’t include the Mid-Atlantic, didn’t include the Chesapeake Bay, didn’t include Assateague, and the valuable resources that we have there. That’s equally important to the Pacific. And I was disappointed that that risk now is greater.” [In the rest of the interview he further criticizes offshore drilling.]
In his “Drilling” Hart also describes Mark Shields as a “PBS liberal,” then says: “It’s good that PBS is letting its viewers in on that [opposition to the drilling] NOW.” [Emphasis added]
–That’s misleading. By law PBS cannot produce programs; Shields is a NewsHour commentator, not a PBS spokesman; and each NewsHour episode must include the standard PBS disclaimer that MacNeil/Lehrer Productions “is solely responsible for its content.” Moreover, Hart has not reviewed all of the PBS-distributed programs to validly conclude that “PBS is letting viewers in on that [opposition to the drilling] NOW.” [Emphasis added]
The NewsHour pieces can be reviewed online via Google; it makes fact-checking easy for those who desire to do it.
Please note: I’m a retired longtime staffer at a major-market PBS-affiliated station.