Paid Shills Earn Their Money By... Writing Comments On Letters To The Editors? Seems Like Easy Money

- by Jack Hannold

My recent contribution to DWT (Fracking Isn't Going To Save The World) wasn’t only posted here; it was also sent to a local newspaper, the South Jersey Times, as a letter to the editor. Although it wasn’t printed until Wednesday morning (Dec. 3), it had been posted on the nj.com web site (shared by all the Newhouse-owned papers in the state) on Monday afternoon, and also posted on DWT at Midnight Monday (9 PST).

Then Wednesday afternoon, the SJT posted this letter from a paid shill who works for Joe Bast’s Heartland Institute:

To the Editor:

The letter to the editor, "Falling oil prices could be good news for the environment," was an interesting piece, unfortunately it misses the mark by claiming the death of the shale boom means good news for the environment, because it's simply not true.

The largest oil spill in history occurred in Kuwait, an OPEC member, where an estimated 246 to 336 million barrels of oil were spilled. Looking at the Top 10 oil spills in history, none of them are related to shale development. Hydraulic fracturing is highly regulated in the United States and the global environment is better protected by domestic, not OPEC, oil production.

ISAAC ORR
Waupaca, Wisconsin

I promptly responded with this online comment:

Isaac Orr has deliberately misrepresented what I said in my letter (linked in his letter above). Here’s what I actually said about spills:

“Diluted bitumen, or ‘dilbit,’ is far more corrosive than conventional crude. It shortens the useful life of tank cars and pipelines.  Leaks are inevitable, and a pipeline can spill far more oil than a single ruptured tank car.”

The real environmental harm from fracking comes from the process itself, not from spills. (This article, published only this morning, describes the dangers of fracking fluids.)

Note that I said nothing about oil spills in any kind of petroleum extraction. I only pointed out that “dilbit” from tar sands, because of its greater corrosiveness, is more likely than either shale oil from fracking or conventional oil to cause both tank cars and pipelines to eventually leak. Obviously, I meant spills in transit, not in extraction. So Isaac’s letter is a good example, in fact a perfect example, of the “straw man” rhetorical technique.

And just who is this Isaac Orr of Waupaca, Wisconsin? Why is he writing to the South Jersey Times? And how (and when) did he hear about my letter (which was printed only today, 12/3, though it appeared online two days earlier)?

Go to at Isaac's page on his employer’s web site, and look at the titles of some of his other writings. They’re all about climate change denial.

Isaac is a “Research Fellow” at the Heartland Institute, a notorious right-wing non-profit outfit that calls itself a “think tank,” but is in reality nothing more than a de facto public relations operation for the fossil fuels industry, big tobacco (including e-cigs), and school privatizers.

And don’t be surprised that Isaac’s in Wisconsin while Heartland is headquartered in Chicago; Heartland has operatives-—excuse me, “Research Fellows”—- everywhere, even here in New Jersey (e.g., Gregory Conley, their “expert” on the virtues of “vaping”!).

You’ve been busted, Isaac!

So why am I telling DWT readers about this? Because it’s what all of you should be doing.

Write a letter to your local paper, giving a more progressive view on something than you would expect from the paper’s own coverage, or discussing something the paper would otherwise never cover.

Start commenting online not only on news stories, but also on op-eds and on letters from other readers. Take issue with the teabaggers, and support your fellow progressives when they have letters published.

You should also follow any links the wingnuts post in their comments, and point out the financial backing of those right wing “sources” they cite. (SourceWatch is useful for researching that.)

And most important of all, expose the paid shills whenever you can. That’s not as daunting as it sounds. As soon as I saw Isaac Orr’s letter Wednesday night, I did a web search and found his affiliation with Heartland in under a minute. It was easy!

The rightwing noise machine is well funded, but it’s not invincible. Refuting the right-wingers-- and exposing the paid shills whenever possible-- is an important part of the struggle to promote a more progressive and more small "d" democratic vision of society. And its costs you nothing but a little time.


UPDATE

Two days after being posted online at nj.com, Isaac Orr’s let has yet to appear in print. It may be in Saturday’s paper, or Sunday’s. I can’t help wondering what’s holding it up.

even more rigorously accurate