climate change

Opinion: Big Oil losing climate change messaging war

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I remember when I took my first college news writing class back in the 1980s one of the first things the professor drilled into us was that news stories must have balance … full stop. For example, if one wrote a story about how humans contribute to climate change it was imperative that the reporter find people representing all sides of the issue … including “experts” who think human action has no impact on climate change … and maybe for good measure folk believing that climate change was a hoax. Balance. Well … having watched and reported on the climate change issue for decades I’ve come to some interesting conclusions.  Most importantly for years Big Oil played journalists as suckers, weaponizing balance to spew and spin oil industry views.