The Canada West Foundation says the oil sands industry is still getting vilified in the media.
VP of Research Robert Roach says nobody trusts the story they’re telling, and there’s lots for environmentalists to attack.
“It’s in the title of the report – dead ducks are very photogenic, in the sense that they really tell a story,” he said. “So the industry has this double challenge – it can’t tell its own story, and there’s lots of easy ways to attack it.”
Roach says their study looked at media coverage of the industry and found it isn’t getting any less negative.
“It’s definitely become the fall guy,” he said. “It has been vilified, and we think unfairly. There’s a lot of other factors that aren’t portrayed accurately, and aren’t given due consideration, so I think vilification is a strong word, but I think it fits.”
He says critics of the industry are rarely challenged by media, while everything the industry does is put under the microscope.
January 31, 2013
