L.A. Times continues to keep pro-fracking news from public

21 Jul, 2013 by Chris Reed

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The Los Angeles Times has somehow managed to write dozens of stories about hydraulic fracturing — the newly efficient methof of underground energy exploration — without noting the Obama administration says it is safe. This is diametrically opposed to the claims of green groups, but reporter Neela Banerjee — who has done the largest amount of the LAT’s fracking coverage — simply refuses to mention it. She does so even when covering an event in which the U.S. interior secretary explicitly defends fracking.

But maybe Banerjee is just giving LAT bosses what they want. Consider the Times’ bizarre decision to not run an Associated Press story that came out Friday  quoting the Obama administration as debunking one of the most inflammatory claims of the fracking haters. Take it away, AP:

“PITTSBURGH (AP) — A landmark federal study on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, shows no evidence that chemicals from the natural gas drilling process moved up to contaminate drinking water aquifers at a western Pennsylvania drilling site, the Department of Energy told The Associated Press.

“After a year of monitoring, the researchers found that the chemical-laced fluids used to free gas trapped deep below the surface stayed thousands of feet below the shallower areas that supply drinking water, geologist Richard Hammack said.”

Isn’t this, yunno, news? That the longstanding claims about Pennsylvania fracking making water flammable or poisonous are a crock?

Not to the green zealots in the state’s newsrooms. They note the oil and gas industry say fracking is safe. But somehow they don’t think mentioning the president’s view is relevant — even if he’s the greenest president ever.