from Julia Seymour at Newsbusters:
Obama Backs EPA War on Coal...
Networks ignore harm to Industry
In February 2011, the Business & Media Institute released an analysis of broadcast network news stories mentioning coal in reference to coal mining, energy from coal and the coal industry between Jan. 1, 2010 and Jan. 31, 2011. BMI found that 79.5 percent of those stories were focused on a mining accident or mine-related disaster.
The mainstream news media often given coal a bad name, literally, calling it the "dirtiest fuel on earth," "dangerous" and "polluting." Of course the primary reason for those attacks is that coal is a fossil fuel, which the media have long campaigned against in the name of [glow ball warmening] alarmism.
But what the networks rarely report is how necessary coal power is for the U.S., that it provides high paying jobs in rural areas, and that it has been getting safer. According to National Mining Association spokesman Luke Popovich the U.S. coal mining industry has cut fatal injuries by two-thirds in the past 18 years. It has also gotten cleaner; he said that since 1980 U.S. power plants have reduced "criteria pollutants" regulated by the Clean Air Act by more than 50 percent.
Were there any relatively objective old-fashioned investigative journalists anywhere anymore, I would suggest they try to speak with Don Blankenship, formerly known by some as "one of the few business leaders in the country who isn't [wasn't] squeamish about political activity."
Blankenship is probably second only to Sarah Palin in the Most Demonized by Dhimmedia category; I don't know that anyone has ever deigned to mention, much less applaud, the community service he instigated while at Massey.
From Wikipedia:
Among Massey Energy’s contributions to the community are an annual Christmas Extravaganza for local children, financial assistance to local schools, and $1 million in college and post-graduate scholarships. Massey co-sponsors the Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation (ALEF) and in 1997 formed Doctors for our Communities with Marshall University, providing MD student loans that are waived if the recipient practices medicine for a minimum of seven years in Massey’s operating region.The Massey Cancer Center of Virginia Commonwealth University is named in honor of William E. Massey for his financial endowment.
In 2005 Massey established the Family Wellness Center that offers medical services to employee’s families in McDowell and Logan [counties] in West Virginia, who [previously often lacked] access to primary care physicians and health care facilities...
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