The Wyalusing Rocket-Courier has engaged in some real journalism in reporting on the reception of Promised Land in the natural gas regions of Pennsylvania. It completely bested Bloomberg News in presenting a balanced take on the movie, reporting not only the views of natural gas opponents but also those locals who thought the movie was “cringe-worthy.”

We have been pointing up here on these pages, and at The Real Promised Land, one simple fact about the movie – it does reflect the views of real views of real people from the real “promised land.’ Now comes Rick Hiduk, News Editor of the Wyalusing Rocket-Courier in the heart of the Northern Tier area of Pennsylvania where natural gas development is taking place to say the same thing. Hudak, in an article entitled Gas Movie Doesn’t Deliver as “Promised,” says the movie is “cringe-worthy.”

This is most interesting. We had been contacted late last week by Bloomberg News about Promised Land, the dud movie that can’t even attract as many Facebook followers as our Real Promised Land site. Their reporter said he wanted to get the local perspective on the movie, rather than just an industry perspective; to see how real folks in a natural gas region would react to the movie. He said he was going to Tunkhannock the next day to watch it and wondered if we could line him up with some people locally to talk. We hurriedly called around, found a landowner and a representative of a local business organization who would do so, and gave their contact information to the reporter.

The result? Well, as one of associates noted, “he contacted none of them and turned his website over to a cornucopia of activists suing natural gas companies to discuss how great Promised Land is.” Yeah, that’s about right. Three quotes from folks who are supposedly reflective of the community hold a lot more weight than an industry comment, especially when those folks, who all just happen to have been involved in lawsuits against oil and gas companies, say the same thing. The “Matt Damon Film Cheers Pennsylvanians Who Say Fracking Pollutes” headline gives away the whole game. The Bloomberg wasn’t “balanced” as the reporter tried suggesting to me. No, it was a rallying piece for natural gas opponents, presenting them as poor locals up against a big bad industry trying to spin their misery as good luck.

The Rocket-Courier, though, got it right. It know its readers. It knows the truth about the real promised land. It did what Bloomberg News refused to do. It talked to members of the community without letting itself being turned into a bullhorn for litigants.

http://eidmarcellus.org/marcellus-shale/bradford-county-residents-p...