ProPublica: Fracking series confronts a void: no good epidemiological evidence

The prominent non-profit ProPublica investigative news site is a clear success, garnering prizes, circulation, and influence. This morning I read, while straying far from ksjtracker's approved purview, a convincing and lively analysis of the public's distrust of major banks and other operations that,in my words and not the article's,  so much more  resemble gambling dens than investment houses. It started on the NYTimes's biz section page 1. Only after reaching to the end did I realize it was from ProPublica and its newly Pulitzer-toting reporter Jesse Eisinger.

Which led to a check of ProPublica's own site for anything that fits the tracker's commissioning writ. First, one little one popped up, purely political but also sort of on science – a handy video clip of Texas Gov. Rick Perry explaining one reason he's skeptical that human activity is changing climate. It's the scientists who concoct phony data so their projects will continue to get gov't grants. Wotta genius. The would-be President hedges by saying that only some  of them do that. What?! So (even if you accept that a substantial few are liars) the remaining honest majority of researchers including National Academy members who see global warming with human fingerprints on it, with data they DON'T fudge , can be dismissed too? This from a guy in the running to make the tough calls for us?

Moving on, it is the service's continuing and diligent look at natural gas drilling, particularly at hydraulic fracturing or fracking of tight, deep formations such as shale, that well represents the few science and energy-related topics in which ProPublica is heavily invested. (Another is its deep look at the case against alleged anthrax terrorist, the late Dr. Bruce Ivins.)  Specifically, two fracking stories' headlines merit examination. One stands up very well. The other has a questionable structure.

• Nicholas Kusnetz (Oct. 6) : Doctors Ask New York to Study Health Impacts Before Allowing Fracking ; This is good news reporting. The underlying theme of this crisp, modest-sized article is that public health authorities find it worrying that health effects of fracking, particularly on residents near drill operations, are not known. The news is in the headline and gets expansion in the text, with description of programs to get good epidemiological data and on calls for more such efforts.
• Abrahm Lustgarten, Nicholas Kusnetz (Sept 16): Science Lags as Health Problems Emerge Near Gas Fields ;  Running three weeks before the first story, this is the investigative story that makes the newsier piece pertinent, and shows ProPublica to be ahead of the game. The hed looks true. Science (particularly public health info) usually lags behind a new industry or technology's fast growth. And how could health problems not emerge near gas fields? They emerge everywhere there are people. Gas fields provide no immunity.

The two headlines emphasize one of the things that ProPublica's series apparently and justly aims to demonstrate. The public is entitled to vigorous monitoring of this new industry, by regulators or by health investigations funded by government, to learn what the downside is to all those jobs and the hope for a more secure, domestic supply of energy we can afford. Personally, I find any celebration of an expansion of fossil fuel use to be stupid, which is spelt sto-o-o-o-o-PID!, and Governor Perry's remark above provides one example why it needs to be pronounced that way. But never mind – if there are health problems too we need to know what they are.

So put these together. 1) These two pieces' ostensible theme is that we cannot say scientifically, which means data-plus-logic which means any opinion is for now just a hunch, whether fracking makes people sick at a rate high enough or severe enough to force major change on the industry. 2) The very first paragraph of that investigative story, the one saying science lags but that health problems do occur near gas fields, is the following:

On a summer evening in June 2005, Susan Wallace-Babb went out into a neighbor's field near her ranch in Western Colorado to close an irrigation ditch. She parked down the rutted double-track, stepped out of her truck into the low-slung sun, took a deep breath and collapsed, unconscious.

Good gripping writing for sure. Near the spot was, presumably still is, a natural gas well and some storage tanks. Dunno if there was fracking, but we are led to think so. Now this woman, who surely demonstrates a health problem emerging near fracking or something like it, wears an oxygen mask a lot of the time. This vignette is the most dramatic in the whole story. Her symptoms, one learns, are far more serious than one fainting spell.

It is common practice in investigative journalism to grab readers with a dramatic example why the topic, whatever it is, is one of consequence. It says here further that this one set of symptoms mirrors those of others near fracking "and other processes used to drill wells" in communities across the country. So one suspects this case was not even relatable to fracking per se. More important, one ought not tilt readers' sentiment severely with such example as this without persuasive, solid evidence that it represents a broad truth. If the story's declared theme is that nobody is in position to conclude with high confidence what the truth is and that's why the feds or somebody ought to get some experts cracking to find out what it is, such doubt needs to be implicit at the top. One should not say, in effect, something horrible is happening and then turn around and qualify it by saying nobody knows what is happening.

To be sure, this vignette is probably true. The woman and others are sick, and they honestly name gas wells as their favorite explanation. But there's another episode deeper in the story. An industry mouthpiece says, from a similar case, that research proved that foul water near a gas well got somebody else sick. But that, unfortunately for any  lawsuit's prospects, it also became clear that the water was bad long before anybody went after gas in underlying rock. If this story led with a sampling like that some would suspect it to be a whitewash puff piece unduly favorable to industry.

Lesson: If the facts support only suspicion of a serious problem, and the reason for reporting such suspicions is to get experts looking into them, don't numb readers' thinking by starting them off with the scariest episode possible. Get more clever than that – write it so that it is crystal clear that cause and effect are unknown. Public fears are fodder for news. But don't fan them before marshalling a lot of evidence to justify it. This story does not have that evidence.

It is not easy to turn away from sensational ledes that please editors and produce stories on the day's most-emailed list. And all in all, this service's and these reporters' output is serving the public well, living up to the name ProPublica. But sometimes, a reporter's gotta step back and find another entry than the easy one.

- Charlie Petit

 

 

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 13th, 2011 at 12:44 pm and is filed under Environment & Energy Stories, Science Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.