Public Opinion

Economic Impact | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Public Opinion

Unnamed Source in New York Times Anti-Gas Articles was…an Intern?!
August 2, 2011August 2, 2011

MDN has previously commented on the obvious vendetta by the New York Times against the natural gas industry, most particularly in articles written by Ian Urbina (see one example here). The Times has a public editor that, from time to time, will criticize the paper’s coverage. Recently, the public editor published a couple of articles refuting the Times’ reporting on the natural gas industry. In particular, the public editor revealed that one of the key anonymous government sources quoted by Urbina, one credited with a number of damaging remarks, was in fact just an intern and not a senior official.

Below is a press statement issued by Energy in Depth, an organization founded and funded by the energy industry. With their usual flair, they do an excellent job of uncovering the truth behind the Urbina articles. EID connects the dots between the intern, Urbina and the anti-drilling organizations who have been feeding them the propaganda we’ve been reading in the Times. MDN is reprinting the entire EID article, with full credit to the fine folks at EID. Please read it!

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Public Opinion | Statewide NY

New Siena College Poll Shows New Yorkers Evenly Divided on the DEC’s New Hydraulic Fracturing Rules
July 15, 2011July 15, 2011

A new poll just released by Siena College’s Siena Research Institute finds New York residents are pretty evenly split (for and against) the Department of Environmental Conservation’s draft regulations that will allow hydraulic fracturing and drilling in the Marcellus Shale.

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Economic Impact | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Public Opinion

New York Times: Nightmare on Shale Gas Street
June 28, 2011June 28, 2011

For many, the New York Times is the paragon of virtue, the ultimate source, arbiter of truth, beacon of light in a world of darkness. And of course, everything you read in the Gray Lady is the honest truth—for real!

Sometimes I sigh and wish I too could live inside the liberal bubble and ignore reality and believe everything in the NYT—life would be so much simpler that way. But alas, I’m one of those few who don’t automatically believe what I read. In fact, a lot of what I read I would consider fiction, rather than fact.

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Cayuga County | Industrywide Issues | New York | Public Opinion | Wastewater

Marcellus Drilling Debate Now Affecting Conventional Gas Drilling in New York State
June 3, 2011June 3, 2011

The debate over horizontal hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus Shale has now spilled over to affect conventional gas drilling in New York State. Protesters rallied outside Auburn City Hall (a small city in Upstate New York) yesterday afternoon to oppose the local municipal sewage treatment plant’s practice of accepting gas drilling wastewater for treatment and release into the Owasco River. None of the wastewater accepted comes from Marcellus Shale drilling—it all comes from conventional natural gas drilling in New York State.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Public Opinion | Statewide NY

The Real News About the Marist Opinion Poll on Marcellus Shale Drilling in New York State
May 19, 2011

Marist College (Poughkeepsie, NY) just completed a statewide poll in New York State to find out if residents generally support or generally oppose hydraulic fracturing. MDN has embedded the poll results below so you can read it for yourself. The standard coverage of this poll in the media, the “big news” if you will, is that New Yorkers are about evenly split: 41 percent generally oppose hydraulic fracturing, and 38 percent support it—a statistical dead heat with the margin of error +/- 5 percent. Marist says a “notable” 21 percent are unsure. But MDN believes the “real news” in this poll is confirmation that the shale gas drilling debate in New York—and nationwide—is (sadly) more about politics than science and common sense. The proof is in the numbers.

The first question asked those who were surveyed was:

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Industrywide Issues | Maryland | Public Opinion | Statewide MD

Maryland Landowners in Marcellus Shale Region – energyNOW! TV Show Wants to Speak with You
May 4, 2011

energyNOW! is a weekly half-hour television program on Bloomberg TV and ABC-7 in Washington DC covering energy and environmental stories. MDN recently received a request from energyNOW! producer Shawn Shepard to see if we can help locate landowners in Maryland willing to talk on-camera for an upcoming energyNOW! segment. Here is Shawn’s request:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Public Opinion

WV Editorial: By All Means Study Marcellus Drilling, But Keep on Drilling in the Meantime
April 6, 2011April 6, 2011

A balanced and common sense editorial running in today’s The Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register makes the point loud and clear that the government and environmental groups should conduct all the studies they want about hydraulic fracturing and drilling in the Marcellus Shale. But please, in the meantime, don’t advocate that all drilling should stop until those studies are completed (which will take years). The editorial says, in part:

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Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Public Opinion | Statewide PA | Taxation

The Truth About How Pennsylvanians Feel About Gov. Tom Corbett and His Budget
March 18, 2011March 18, 2011

If you do nothing more than read or listen to the headlines in PA, you’d swear the peasants are coming with pitchforks for newly elected Gov. Tom Corbett because the budget he’s proposing (finally) balances the budget in PA—without raising taxes. After years of gimmicks and patches, and especially after two years of Obama’s stimulus money which has been squandered and is now gone (our children and grandchildren will thank us for that one—they’re the ones who will have to pay it back), states all over the country must now deal with serious deficits, including PA. Corbett was elected in part to do just that.

After issuing his budget last week, it’s been a non-stop scream fest from the media announcing how much residents hate the budget. The media narrative has been that Corbett “wants to slash spending on education but won’t levy a tax on Marcellus drilling.” In their efforts to support the narrative, newspapers and television outlets in PA commissioned a poll by Franklin & Marshall College, and they frequently quote bits and pieces from that poll to support their stated conclusions. The problem is, when you read the polling data for yourself, it doesn’t quite fit the narrative painted by the media.

Forthwith are the actual questions asked, and the full responses. This is not the complete survey which also includes demographic questions. You can download the full survey below and read it for yourself.

MDN offers its observations after each survey question—you can draw your own conclusions.

(Warning: Although this post includes details about Marcellus shale drilling, it also includes coverage of the broader issue of the PA budget and the recent poll conducted about the budget. Some of this material may appear to be “off topic” but in MDN’s opinion it provides the proper context to understand the issue of drilling and taxation.)

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Industrywide Issues | Public Opinion

Survey by Pro-Drilling PR Firm Indicates Public Opinion is Turning Against Drilling in the Marcellus Shale
March 2, 2011March 2, 2011

Public relations firm Gregory FCA recently used the Nielsen BuzzMetrics service to conduct a study of traditional media, as well as social media, to determine whether public sentiment or perception on the whole is pro, neutral, or anti-drilling with respect to drilling in the Marcellus Shale. Gregory FCA’s survey included more than 100 million online and traditional media comments as part of the study.

The results for traditional media—newspapers, television, and radio:

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