Poll: Public Has Internalized GOP's Keystone Messaging (With Help From Media)

Last week, we released a study showing that major media outlets have largely favored GOP talking points in their coverage of the Keystone XL pipeline. The vast majority gave a greater amount of airtime to proponents of the pipeline and portrayed the project as a "job creator," often repeating discredited jobs estimates in the process. A poll released today by Republican pollster David Winston suggests that the media bias may be skewing public opinion as well.

78 percent of those surveyed in December said that the pipeline would create "a significant amount of jobs," while only 13 percent said that it wouldn't. There are, of course, questions as to what defines a "significant number" of jobs. But if trends in media coverage provide any indication, it is more than likely that a sizable chunk of those surveyed are basing their answers on bad data.

TransCanada, the Canadian company behind the proposed pipeline, has repeatedly claimed that the project would "directly create more than 20,000 high-wage manufacturing jobs and construction jobs" as well as "118,000 spin-off jobs," and up to 553,000 jobs "stemming from a permanent increase in stable oil supplies." Those estimates have been parroted by pipeline proponents in Congress. But they are drawn from an industry-funded study that independent experts have called "dead wrong," "meaningless," "flawed and poorly documented." Worse, they aren't even accurately cited. TransCanada has repeatedly used the term "jobs" to refer to what was actually an estimate of "person-years of employment."

In reality, the only independent study of the Keystone XL pipeline found that it could create as few as 50 permanent jobs, along with a maximum of 4,500 temporary jobs. The State Department estimates that the project would employ 5,000 to 6,000 temporary construction workers, but "would not have a significant impact on long-term employment."

Nevertheless, our analysis found that between August and December 2011, the media uncritically repeated TransCanada's inflated estimates of job creation 5 times more often than they questioned them:

Despite the media's flawed reporting about the pipeline's jobs impact, 48 percent of those surveyed said they agreed with the President's decision to delay a decision on the pipeline in order to "fully understand the environmental impact." 45 percent said they agreed with Republicans who claim that the delay is political and is "costing 20,000 jobs." (This gap is reportedly within the margin of error).

The poll indicates fairly strong public support for the President's decision. But we wonder what that number would look like had the media's coverage been more accurate.