Daily Kos

In case it wasn't already obvious to those following news coverage of the Keystone pipeline controversy, a review by Media Matters concludes that proponents were quoted far more frequently than those who criticized the project. Bogus claims of a vast number of jobs being created by the pipeline were five times more likely to have been reported uncritically than they were to have been challenged.

On Jan. 18, President Obama publicly rejected the application by TransCanada to build the pipeline along a route from Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast. The 1700-mile pipeline would have delivered oil derived from the environmentally destructive mining of Canadian tar-sand deposits across sensitive areas, most particularly the huge Ogallala Aquifer, underground water that feeds the U.S. farm-belt from South Dakota to central-west Texas. The president has told TransCanada that it can reapply with a new proposed route, and the company has said it will reapply but without changing the route.

Among Media Matters' findings:

•  79 percent of those quoted or interviewed on broadcast news favored the pipeline. NBC and ABC never quoted an opponent. On Fox News, 66 percent favored and 13 percent opposed; on CNN 54 percent favored and 14 percent opposed; on MSNBC 38 percent favored and 31 percent opposed.

 • 45 percent of those quoted by major newspapers favored the pipeline and 31 percent opposed. The New York Times was the most balanced (35 percent favored, 27 percent opposed) and the Wall Street Journal was the least balanced (52 percent favored and 21 percent opposed).

• The Washington Post, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal editorial boards endorsed the pipeline. Collectively, they published 16 op-eds or editorials supporting the pipeline and only one opposed. In total, the major print outlets published 19 op-eds or editorials in favor of the project and 10 opposed.

• Notably, the media presented TransCanada's highly inflated, some would say, bullshit, job-creation claims very uncritically. According to Media Matters, "Fox News uncritically repeated these numbers more than all the other television networks combined."

Among other problems with the coverage was the downplaying of environmental concerns, the focus on unsubstantiated claims of increased energy security and the failure to look closely at allegations of bias by the State Department in its review of the project as well as conflicts of interest by the consultant contracted to carry out the environmental impact statement.