Wandering With the Keystone XL Pipeline
Four and a half years ago, on
September 19th of 2008, the U.S. Department of State received an
important Presidential Permit application. The application came from a company
called TransCanada and it asked for permission to construct a seventeen hundred
mile pipeline from Alberta, Canada to refineries in Texas. This pipeline, named
the Keystone XL pipeline, would transport at least seven hundred thousand
barrels of oil per day into the U.S. and create many domestic jobs. TransCanada,
the company spearheading the project, needed approval from the U.S. Department
of State prior to starting construction because the proposed pipeline would
cross international borders. The U.S. Department of State announced it would
begin forming an Environmental Impact Statement in January of 2009 to address
the effects of the proposed pipeline. Throughout a six-month period the
Department of State conducted interviews and meetings with both federal and
state agencies as well as local landowners. After more than a year of
investigations the Environmental Impact Statement concluded in April of 2010 that
the Keystone XL pipeline posed “limited adverse environmental impacts during
both construction and operation” (“Timeline”).
For the next year and
a half public opinion of the Keystone XL pipeline caused political headache for
lawmakers and policy advocates alike. Environmental groups staunchly opposed
construction of the pipeline, while others insisted the benefits of the project
far outweighed the costs. The Department of State opened a comment period for the
Keystone XL pipeline and received two hundred and eighty thousand online
remarks from opinionated citizens. One commentor, Raphael Blesi, called on the
department to reject the pipeline application because “global warming is REAL.”
Some supporters of the pipeline, such as Guy Black, strongly urged the
commencement of the pipeline in order for the country to gain the “significant economic
benefits this project stands to deliver” (Long). Finally in November of 2011
President Obama, on behalf of the Department of State, decided that the
Keystone XL pipeline would not receive his potential approval until after the
2012 election. President Obama’s announcement did not stop politicians from
arguing about the pipeline and it certainly did not stop the media from
reporting on the political drama surrounding the issue.
Between
November of 2011, when Obama decided to delay his decision, and February of
2013 stories about the Keystone XL pipeline frequently appeared in the news. In
this paper I explore the ways in which these stories have changed over time as
well as the ways in which these stories change between different news sources.
I choose to analyze how three different media websites, The Los Angeles Times, The
Foundry, and The Daily Beast, portray the Keystone XL pipeline story in light
of two specific episodes of political drama, the payroll tax controversy and
Obama’s inauguration.
The
first event examined in this paper occurred in December 2011, when Republicans
required the president to either approve or deny the Keystone XL pipeline
within sixty days by attaching the requirement to the payroll tax bill. The Los
Angeles Times immediately reported on this story with little bias: they
presented facts in a straightforward manner and included direct quotes from a
wide range of political actors, including the Democratic Campaign Committee and
republican House Speaker John Boehner. The purpose of the article was simply to
inform citizens of their government’s activity. The Los Angeles Times targets a
diverse audience, and they seek to make their news stories accessible to the
general public (Mascaro).
A full week after the Los Angeles Times
published their story The Foundry reported on this issue, but it was presented
much differently. As a conservative blog of the right-leaning Heritage
Foundation, The Foundry strongly supports the Keystone XL pipeline. Passionate,
fiery conservatives constitute the majority of its readers. The Foundry’s
article simply recycled the news of the Los Angeles Times and then added their
opinion. Joseph Harris refers to this process as forwarding, because forwarding
takes an original idea or concept and elaborates on it (Harris 37). The article
recycles the fact that “the Keystone XL pipeline would bring 700,000 barrels of
oil per day from Canada to refineries in Texas” and then biasedly adds that the
pipeline would “give a major boost to the U.S. economy” (“Mr. President”).
In what Harris refers
to as countering, The Daily Beast presents this same story in a much different
light than both the Los Angeles Times and The Foundry. The Daily Beast argues
against the pipeline by showing the “negatives of a championed idea” (Harris 56). In this case they show the negative environmental
impacts of the conservatively championed pipeline idea. The Daily Beast
article, published nine days after the original Los Angeles Times article and
two days after The Foundry article, gives a basic account of what had happened
on Capital Hill. It then counters The Foundry’s claim that the pipeline would
benefit the U.S. economy. McKinnon does this by saying Republicans actually
hurt the economy by attaching the presidential decision requirement to the
payroll tax bill because the Republican-revised bill risked overall
congressional rejection. In the event the bill had been rejected, millions of
middle class Americans would see their taxes rise. McKinnon states, “the victim
was clear— the middle class. The villain is also clear: those e-e-e-vil
Republicans” (McKinnon).
Analyzing
three versions of the same news story reveals how a particular story changes
from source to source. The original article from the Los Angeles Times gave the
most reasonable account of the recent political maneuvers in Congress. In the
course of a week the story appeared on The Foundry, but this time included
facts forwarded from the original article and extended upon. The Daily Beast
came out with an article two days after The Foundry, but this article included
charged rhetoric countering the conservative view represented by The Foundry.
When
examining recent news for the Keystone XL pipeline after Obama’s second
inauguration, the story resurfaces with a new spin. The Los Angeles Times ran
an article titled “Obama Signals New Focus
on Climate Change,” summarizing the energy policies highlighted in Obama’s
speech the following morning. Clearly the Los Angeles Times seeks to appeal to
the general public with this article because it presents both the conservative
and liberal views of Obama’s second-term energy priorities. The Los Angeles
Time is not hoarding any political opinion here, as is evident with this quote taken
from the article: “the administration has also said that it could make a decision by
March about approving the controversial Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the
U.S. Gulf Coast” (Banerjee and Parsons). The above sentence represents a
generic statement included for the sole purpose of informing, not persuading,
readers.
The same story changes
when it appears on The Foundry’s blog on January 24th of 2013, two
days after the Los Angeles Times published their article. In “Keystone XL- A
Matter of First Importance,” The Foundry seeks to negatively portray the Obama
Administration regarding their delay to approve the Keystone XL pipeline by
forwarding information from the Los Angeles Times’ article and then countering
the information with additional facts. The Los Angeles Times took the direct
statement by the Obama Administration that it “could make a decision by March about…the Keystone XL pipeline,”
while the Foundry took that statement and expanded on it. Although the
administration claimed it could make
a decision by March, the Department of State announced that they would “not meet its promised
March deadline to complete the review of the entire project,” and the Foundry
quickly emphasizes this new announcement (“Nebraska Governor”). Unlike the Los
Angeles Times’ informative article, this article encourages supporters to continue
their fight for presidential approval of the pipeline. On February 19th
The Daily Beast chose to report on the Keystone XL pipeline. Their article
sought to show the “heroic” efforts of environmental activists in their fight
against pipeline approval. “Braving frigid cold, at least 35,000 demonstrators
gathered in Washington on Sunday” to protest the Keystone XL pipeline,
according to The Daily Beast. This article pushes the pipeline argument in a
new direction. Instead of urging others to support the pipeline, the Daily
Beast tells readers they “must avert catastrophic climate disruption” by
protesting the pipeline (Hertsgaard). The Foundry seeks to encourage supporters of the
pipeline, but the Daily Beast encourages protestors of the pipeline.
The media
reports of early 2013 undertook similar transformations from source to source as
the media reports did in December of 2011. The original stories both appeared
on a neutral news source, in this case the Los Angeles Times. In the weeks
following the first publications of the stories, The Foundry and The Daily
Beast sought to forward and counter the original information presented by a
neutral news source. They successfully forwarded and countered by elaborating
on particular facts, adding personal opinions, and by pushing the argument into
new directions. Further, both The Foundry and The Daily Beast forwarded and
countered the Los Angeles Times articles so that their news stories fit the
conservative and liberal agenda respectively. Although this is simply one case
of how liberal and conservative media spin the news, many other examples exist.
The prevalence of such stories and news sites shines light on the fact that
American political views seem to be growing increasingly polarized.
Works
Cited
Banerjee, Neela, and Christi Parsons.
“Obama Signals New Focus on Climate Change.” Los
Angeles Times 22 Jan. 2013. LA
Times. Web. 28 Feb. 2013.
Harris,
Joseph. Rewriting: How to do Things with Texts. Logan, UT: Utah State
University Press,
2006. Print.
Hertsgaard, Mark. “Welcome to the
Politics of Climate Change: Adapt and Avert.” The Daily
Beast. 19 Feb.
2013. Web. 28 Feb. 2013.
Long, Lisa. "Public Comments on
Keystone Pipeline." Truth Out. Inside Climate News, 1 Nov.
2011. Web.
27 Feb. 2013.
Mascaro, Lisa. “Boehner Predicts
Bipartisan Support for House Payroll Tax Plan.” Los Angeles
Times 12 Dec. 2011. LA
Times. Web. 28 Feb. 2013.
McKinnon, Mark. “The Republicans’
Payroll Tax Gift to Obama.” The Daily Beast. 22 Dec.
2011. Web. 28
Feb. 2013.
“Mr. President, There’s Bipartisan
Support for Keystone XL - The Foundry: Conservative Policy
News Blog from
The Heritage Foundation.” The Foundry: Conservative Policy News
Blog from The
Heritage Foundation. Web. 28 Feb. 2013.
“Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman
Approves New Keystone XL Route.” The Foundry:
Conservative
Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation. Web. 28 Feb. 2013.
“Timeline: Keystone’s Three Years in
Limbo - The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog
from The
Heritage Foundation.” The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The
Heritage
Foundation. Web. 28 Feb. 2013.
