Campaign Desk, The Observatory - July 23, 2010 03:00 PM Climate Bill Blowout It's a big deal. Where's the print coverage?
By Curtis Brainard Following Senator Harry Reid's decision to pull the plug on climate legislation Thursday, news sites lit up with lit up with analyses of who was to blame. As well they should; this is a major story. But if you don't get your news online, you were likely out of this story's loop. Democrats don't have the votes to push for a bill that would cap greenhouse gases (even one aimed only at utilities) or establish renewable energy standards, Reid said. Instead, the Senate will pursue a much weaker bill. Details remain sketchy, but Mother Jones reports that the weaker bill will eliminate a cap on companies' financial liability for oil spills, reform regulation of the oil and gas industry, and devote funds to promoting natural-gas vehicles, home energy efficiency, and the Land & Water Conservation Fund-but won't do much toward President Obama's campaign pledge to start to move the nation off a petroleum economy. Accounts of Reid's announcement began to appear on the Web sites and blogs of major news outlets just after noon yesterday. But in print, the failure of one of the Obama's administration's top policy priorities and campaign pillars does not seem to be front-page news. Why? In The New York Times, the story is on A15, comprising 723 words. A search of Lexis-Nexis shows that The Washington Post ran it on page two at 457 words, the Los Angeles Times ran it on page fourteen at 659 words, and The Wall Street Journal ran it on page three at 1,035 words. The Boston Globe cobbled something together from the wires on page two, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran an abridged version of the LA Times's article on page six, McClatchy's D.C. bureau filed a 1,075-word piece, and, according to Google, dozens of smaller papers are running articles from The Associated Press, Bloomberg, and Reuters. ... http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/climate_bill_blowout.php?page=all _______________________________________________ Medianews mailing list Medianews@etskywarn.net http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
