FrackNation Page #5

in the Delaware River Basin,

clearly didn't like

being asked questions.

As I was leaving, she attempted to

have her lawyer confiscate our film.

I don't know what you are here for.

I'm really concerned.

Could I have your film?

I would like the film, please.

You guys.

Thank you.

This was really bad news for the

farmers in the Delaware River Basin.

Josh Fox and powerful

government officials

robbed them of their livelihoods.

And all of this happened because

of the story Josh Fox tells

in the opening

of his film Gasland.

One day I got a letter in the mail.

It was from a natural gas company.

The letter told me

that my land was on top of

a formation called

the Marcellus shale.

I could lease my land

to this company

and I would receive a signing bonus

of $4,750 an acre.

Having 19.5 acres,

that was nearly $100,000

right there in my hand.

But the story wasn't true.

Ironically, when you look

at Gasland and you zoom...

They have a scene where

they're zooming in

on the alleged original lease,

it is our lease.

It is an NWPOA lease

draft that we had written,

and it's blackened out,

but it's ours,

not one that a company offered him.

Marion showed me

how she first noticed that.

The farmer's lease had two

minor typos on the first page,

a double spacing

and a missing quotation mark.

And so did the lease Josh Fox

is holding up in Gasland.

So thousands of journalists

who watched Gasland

and went on to write all those

stories about fracking

never listened to

the farmers pointing out

that the documentary was

misleading from the very start.

The media coverage of the gas

has been so unfair,

so full of half-truths.

Seems to me everything's

been one-sided.

They don't tell you both sides

of the story. You get one side.

It's sort of biased on one side

than the other.

It doesn't reflect the views

necessarily of all the people.

They really have not represented

the local people and the people

who are in favor of it.

The media's constantly saying that

they're destroying the water.

They would have you believe

that Marcellus shale development

was the scourge of the land.

They put a perception

in a lot of people's heads

that every well drilled

is gonna pollute all the time,

and that's ludicrous.

It's almost like, you know,

the media and the litigants all want

chemicals to appear in their water.

It's a lot of sensationalism,

which just,

with very little fact behind it.

There is so much stuff

out there in the media

that to actually go through and try

to combat the misinformation

and fear mongering could

actually be a full-time job.

I thought I should talk to

John Entine, a U.S. media expert.

I was a network television

producer for 20 years

with NBC News, ABC News.

I was Tom Brokaw's producer at NBC

and head of documentaries there.

At ABC I was investigative producer

for 20/20 and Prime Time Live.

And the last 20 years,

in a writing career

that focuses on this nexus

of public policy,

media and NGO advocacy,

is one of the unexamined areas

that creates the kind of narratives,

shapes the ethics of the way

we talk about news issues,

including the whole

shale gas crisis,

if you could so to speak, and the

crisis is really in media coverage,

not in the danger that shale gas

presents to the United States

or the world.

The scary part in this debate

is that the media,

once the influence medias,

The New York Times,

the networks,

they've adopted

the entertainment style of Josh Fox.

It's all about pictures that evoke

this kind of anger and image.

It's like trash journalism.

There was a series of articles

by The New York Times

essentially saying shale

gas was overblown,

that there was a lot of

skepticism within the industry,

that its carbon footprint

was far greater than even coal,

a series, essentially,

that if those things were true,

no reasonable-minded person

could support shale gas.

It was echoed across

the internet,

headlines in newspapers

around the world,

discussed in parliament. Why?

Because when The New York Times

reports something,

the regular media considers that

it's been vetted, that it's factual.

In this case it hadn't been vetted,

and when someone did look at it,

the ombudsman, he was horrified.

He came out with two Sunday

New York Times reports

in two consecutive

New York Times issues,

unprecedented, hadn't been done in

the history of The New York Times,

literally dressing down his own

paper's coverage of natural gas,

saying it was biased,

manipulative,

cherry-picking of the facts,

getting key facts wrong.

Literally, it's the kind of thing

that should have gotten the key

reporters on natural gas fired.

And the only reason they

weren't fired

is because it literally was indicting

the entire editorial department.

So it would have been literally

a major housecleaning

because their coverage

was literally unethical.

You're not overreacting a bit?

I mean this is just...

This is good theatrical journalism.

There's no real-world consequences.

I mean, it's fun to watch.

It may be fun to watch,

may be entertaining,

but there are enormous

public policy consequences.

The goal of the anti-shale

gas industry,

and make no bones about it,

that's what it is,

is to stop shale gas development

now and for the future.

They're not looking

for better regulation.

They're not looking for more

sophisticated technology

to make this more efficient.

They're attempting to stop

progress in its tracks.

Shale gas is a gift from God,

and if we let hysteria

drive regulation,

if we let politicians

essentially set the ground rules

for what should be a

science-driven enterprise,

we're gonna set

the American economy

and the world economy

back 50 years.

Paleolithic era,

that's what we're going for.

James Delingpole is

a British journalist and author

who has written extensively

about energy issues.

Shale gas is the miracle

of the early 21st century.

In terms of safety

and environmental friendliness

and economic efficiency,

shale gas is about the best thing

going in the world right now.

And the only reason,

the only reason

that shale gas is not

developing faster than it is,

particularly in Europe, in America

it's already a great success,

is because of these

disingenuous objections

which are being raised

by the environmental movement,

funded, I would suspect,

by, for example, the Russians,

who are big producers

of natural gas.

I was at a dinner with

Prime Minister Putin recently,

with a group of foreign journalists

and foreign academics

who are invited every year.

He doesn't eat very much.

We all eat, ask him questions,

he answers the questions.

The final question

was about gas,

and particularly about shale gas.

And it was very interesting

to see his reaction,

a real illustration,

I think, of the concern

that shale gas

is causing in Russia

because it was one of

the few moments in the dinner

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