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Massaging the Message: How Oilpatch Newspapers Censor the News

FROM THE ARTICLE: In their book Manufacturing Consent, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky argue that the mainstream media functions largely as a propaganda arm for the state. When the war drum beats, the corporate media tows the government’s line, censoring facts that don’t fit the official narrative. Outside of war, media bias is typically less overt. But to the careful observer, it can still be discerned. In this case, our careful observer is Canadian oil critic Regan Boychuk. Boychuk lives in Calgary — a prairie city that is famous for two things. Calgary hosts the world’s largest rodeo. And it is the corporate heart of the Canadian oil business. Calgary … home to cowboys and crude-oil CEOs. As you might guess, our story of media censorship is not about cowboys. Calgary’s main newspaper, the Herald, is staunchly pro-oil. And that means its editorial pages are filled with oilpatch jingoism. However, the rest of the paper is an archetype of neutral reporting. Just kidding. Unsurprisingly, the Herald’s pro-oil stance shapes the content that appears in the paper. This post takes a quantitative look at the editorial ‘curation’. Most of the heavy lifting has been done by Boychuk, who had

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