In December, reporter Allison Sickle wrote an in-depth piece about the environmental impact of drilling in the Marcellus Shale. While there were many people who thought the piece was fair, a few organizations took issue with our characterization of the environmental challenges facing the Marcellus Shale region. Soon after posting, a flood of comments came in flaming the article for being “alarmist,”’ for not mentioning all enormous benefit gained by drilling, and calling out the author’s research and “so called experts.”
We were unsurprised by the comments, the internet being the ultimate bastion of anonymous invective, but the organization and speed of these attacks were alarming. After a dig through the site analytics, it wasn’t too hard to spot the forum that was probably responsible for the attacks on the story. It isn’t unusual for us to get calls from corporate hacks that take issue with our articles (Nestle), but this new brand of grassroots attack is a different animal.
The Gas people have to love this. They don’t have to call us, or go on the record, or answer any questions. No, they just have to put out faulty information, do a little crowd control, and people who stand to benefit from their products the most will simply go out and do hit jobs for them. They simply have to call upon their virtual Hessians in forums to do their dirty work, which they willingly do for the mere opportunity to pat themselves on the back for a job well done.
Now this isn’t a new concept, especially to me. As one of the youngest people here at DCBureau.org, and someone who has spent a lot of time on forums, I’m well aware of the awesome power (hilarity) of anonymously trashing something. But, at the end of the day, I was fourteen (eighteen?) at the time and was debating the merits of video games. I wasn’t a sentient adult who takes pleasure in completely ignoring factual evidence and was at least willing to acknowledge that my opponent’s (e-ponnent?) argument exists and may actually have some merit.
That’s just it, though; this wasn’t an editorial or a rant on a forum. It was a comprehensive, well researched piece that used facts to espouse a truth about potential hazards regarding the Marcellus Shale. The article had numerous sources, covered numerous sides, and painted a diverse picture of the issues surrounding the business of natural gas drilling in New York- a subject you can expect DC Bureau to cover more in the future.
Has it really come to the point where hordes of people who patently refuse to do basic research move around the internet like marauders? Is the state of discourse so bad that we can’t even stand the existence of another side? Let’s start using our better judgment again folks. This isn’t to say you need to agree with what we write, but it’s not too much to ask that you read an article, think about what it has to say, form a substantive opinion, and at least attempt to maintain some semblance of independent thought when buried by corporate PR.
On a completely unrelated note, the forum at cnylandcoalition.org smells like poop.
