Investigative reporting by the Huffington Post has pulled back the curtain on the aggressive intimidation tactics used by the oil industry to shape media coverage.
The piece profiles Karen Crummy, a former Denver Post reporter turned oil and gas spokeswoman. The HuffPo piece is based on audio from an Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission meeting last May, where Crummy offered some advice to industry insiders frustrated by “inaccurate” reporting.
During the presentation, Crummy asks: “What if the policy/the facts aren’t enough?”
Her answer: “…I, for one, see nothing wrong with killing the messenger.”
And that’s exactly what Crummy advised industry public relations specialists to do. She said, “If you are really having a problem with a certain reporter or something, go do some oppo[sition] research on them.
“I will throw it all over Twitter. It’s kind of mean that you embarrassed that person, but oh well. I mean, do your job.”
One retired Denver Post reporter, Nancy Lofholm, was “not totally surprised to hear” about Crummy’s approach to PR. After writing a piece on cases of anomalous infant mortality near some oil drilling sites, Lofholm learned from her colleagues that Crummy had taken the issue to her editor after attacking the credibility of her sources.
The HuffPo piece reads, “Lofholm said that responding to Crummy’s attacks, calls for corrections and attempts to ‘shake down’ editors added to the difficulties in her final year at the paper.”
This story raises serious questions about press freedoms and whether the Denver Post and other newspaper editors are giving into bullying. Crummy is advocating for PR professionals to threaten the credibility and character of reporters, and actively scare reporters out of writing stories that may shed a negative light on oil companies.
We’ve even been the target of Crummy’s intimidations. Two years ago, Denver Post energy reporter Mark Jaffe tweeted about a Center for Western Priorities’ analysis on oil spills in Colorado. Our data was based on publicly available oil spill statistics from the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. That didn’t stop Karen Crummy from going after Jaffe (and us).
At the Center for Western Priorities, we work hard to make sure that stories accurately reflect the facts about energy and conservation in the news. However, accountability and fact-checking are not the same as targeting and personally attacking reporters.
We hope that in the face of this kind of blatantly biased bullying, the Denver Post and other Western papers are willing to stand up for its reporters and see through the intimidation tactics used by Crummy and other industry spokespeople.