Big Oil refused to take responsibility for its decades of climate disinformation
Based on the revelations uncovered from a June sting operation conducted by Unearthed, Greenpeace’s investigative journalism outlet, executives from Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, and BP were called to testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s Subcommittee on Environment to explain their industry’s decades-long climate disinformation campaign and public shift in tactics from outright denial toward subtler forms of climate delay. In fact, in the the lead up to the hearing, a joint analysis by Heated and Earther found that oil companies increased advertising in DC-based newsletters to “give readers the false impression” that they are meaningfully addressing the climate crisis. Rather than using the opportunity to take responsibility for funding climate denial and to dial back the more egregious aspects of their social media greenwashing campaigns, the Big Oil executives chose a strategy of obfuscation.
According to The Intercept: “It was a comfortable Zoom-style presentation of obfuscation the oil industry had been waiting and training to deliver, slipping and sliding around each question, and avoiding any major controversy that might make national news and encourage negative public opinion or strong government action.”
Cable news segments about the Big Oil hearing showed improvement from previous climate coverage
Thursday’s coverage was presaged by May 26-June 1 coverage of a Dutch court ruling that found Shell must cut its emissions by 45% by 2030 relative to 2019 levels, among other climate-related stories. Cable news outlets too often fail to incorporate these important news stories into their ongoing framing of the climate crisis, particularly the need to hold Big Oil accountable. Cable news coverage of the spending bills’ negotiations, which largely failed to contextualize the need for urgent climate action and failed to cover how Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) deep ties to the fossil fuel industry could inform his efforts to weaken climate provisions, also illustrates this trend.
Coverage of the Big Oil congressional hearing provided the briefest glimpse of what accountability journalism could look like if cable news shows began seriously interrogating how the fossil fuel industry knowingly drove climate change, engaged in a campaign to hide this fact, and is currently funding sophisticated greenwashing campaigns to fool the public about its paltry efforts to mitigate the climate crisis.
The single best segment about the hearing aired on CNN’s New Day. Aired before the hearing began, the segment devoted almost five minutes to Big Oil’s billion-dollar climate disinformation campaign designed to erode public acceptance of climate science and stall any climate action that could impact its bottom line. Not only did the segment provide viewers with the background necessary to engage with the hearing, but it set a high bar that no other cable show was able to reach.
The hearing’s Republican opposition was sponsored by Fox News
Although Fox News aired only two segments about the hearing on October 28, its fingerprints were evident in the Republicans’ chosen witness, laid-off Keystone XL pipeline worker Neal Crabtree, and their lines of questioning.
After President Joe Biden issued an executive order in January halting the construction of the Keystone pipeline, Crabtree quickly became a featured guest on Fox News and given free rein to rail against the administration’s energy policies. He has appeared on Fox News at least seven times this year.
When afforded the opportunity to speak during the hearing, Crabtree reiterated many of the same points he’d made repeatedly on Fox News. Highlighting the unseriousness of the Republican Party’s efforts to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for climate change, GOP committee members nudged him back onto script attacking the Biden administration the moment Crabtree deviated from his well-honed talking points.
Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original programming on CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC for any of the terms “oil,” “gas,” “climate,” “Exxon,” “Mobil,” “ExxonMobil,” “BP,” “Chevron,” “Shell,” “executive,” “CEO,” “Congress,” “hearing,” or "capitol hill” on October 28, 2021.
We counted segments, which we defined as instances when the hearing was the stated topic of discussion or when we found significant discussion that also included discussion of the hearing. We defined significant discussion as two or more speakers in a multi-topic segment discussing the hearing with one another.
We did not count headline reports, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host read news highlights covering a range of topics; passing mentions, which we defined as instances when a single speaker spoke without another engaging with the comment; or teasers, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host promoted a segment scheduled to air later in the broadcast.
