Oil Drilling in Environmentally Sensitive Areas: The Role of the Media

Mark Weisbrot and Nichole Szembrot

CEPR Reports and Issue Briefs from Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR)

Abstract: This paper examines television news coverage of proposed drilling for oil in environmentally sensitive zones in the United States. It finds that these broadcasts almost completely ignored data, and conclusions, from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Agency (EIA). The EIA finds that the benefits from such drilling would be too small to have a significant effect on the price of oil. There is no legitimate reason for this omission in the media. Just as economic reporting regularly uses data (unemployment, inflation, GDP, trade) from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, or Bureau of Labor Statistics, reporting on energy relies on data from the EIA.

JEL-codes: Q Q4 Q41 Q43 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 4 pages
Date: 2008-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul, nep-ene and nep-env
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:epo:papers:2008-24

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