Fossil fuel accountability is still not an integral part of climate change coverage — but even in cases when oil corporations are a central character in a story, national TV news often misses the opportunity to scrutinize Big Oil. In April 2022, for example, CNN and MSNBC covered a congressional hearing on the oil industry’s role in driving record-high gas prices while earning record profits for only 10 minutes and 4 minutes, respectively. By comparison, Fox News programs devoted 49 minutes to the hearing, and much of the network’s coverage defended Big Oil and insisted that Biden’s policies were really responsible for high gas prices.
On May 26, 2021, Big Oil companies experienced a historic “very bad day” that signaled a win for climate action after a Dutch court ruled that Shell must cut its emissions by 45% by 2030; two activist investors won seats on Exxon’s board with the goal of steering the oil giant to a cleaner energy future; and a majority of Chevron shareholders voted in favor of a resolution to curtail that company’s emissions. Broadcast and cable news channels aired just 14 segments in total on the news that climate writer Bill McKibben called “an utterly crushing day for Big Oil.”
The scarce TV coverage of Trump’s scandalous Big Oil proposition, with the exception of MSNBC, represents another missed opportunity for news networks to illustrate what good accountability coverage could look like. Notably, MSNBC’s coverage allowed the opportunity for guests to make salient points about Big Oil alongside the focus on Trump’s brazen quid pro quo offer.
For example, Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, turned his attention to the hypocrisy of the oil industry during the May 11 edition of Velshi.
“These are the same executives who, in the wake of January 6, said, ‘We’re not going to support people who undermined our democracy,’” Bookbinder noted. “And there they are, these couple of years later, meeting with Donald Trump, courting his support, hearing his offer — his demands — that they give a billion dollars to his campaign.”
McKibben also argued on May 11 that Big Oil companies face an “existential moment” and can maintain their standing “only by political gamesmanship” because clean energy is increasingly competitive, “and it's the future that scares the hell out of Exxon and Chevron.”
“Last year they made, respectively, $36 billion and $21 billion,” he continued. “So, a billion off that wouldn’t be much. They are going to do that to make sure that Donald Trump is there to help them out.”
On the May 19 edition of Velshi, Whitehouse talked broadly about efforts to hold Big Oil accountable.
“We had a hearing, Congressman Raskin and I, just the other day where the woman who led the prosecution team that won the Department of Justice victory against Big Tobacco for its campaign of lies and fraud and deceit said, yes, obviously you should bring a case just like that against the fossil fuel industry for its campaign of fraud and lies and deceit,” the senator explained. “So you have the quid pro quo, you’ve got the tobacco model, you’ve got the cooked up, pre-prepared executive orders being groomed for the Trump administration, and I think it all adds up to something that justifies at least a little due diligence out of the Department of Justice.”