The link is to a long op-ed piece in The New York Times to which the "public editor," Arthur S. Brisbane, takes responsibility. The op-ed piece appears to be reacting to the backlash generated by the shoddy "reporting" in the New York Times about the hoax, scam, or Ponzi scheme the newspaper described in its portrayal of the US natural gas industry as another "Enron."
I scanned through the Brisbane op-ed piece very, very quickly, and have little appetite to read it again, so I may be misreading it. But it certainly sounds as if The New York Times realized how shoddy their "reporting" was on this story, and appears to be trying to "walk back" the story as they say. [See first comment below: some will argue that the "reporting" was typical "spin" but in this case the "spin" was so bad, everyone held it up to ridicule.]
I find the timing of Brisbane's op-ed piece very, very interesting. I doubt an op-ed piece like this is thought about, written, edited, and published overnight. The Times, no doubt, has been trying to figure out how and when to deal with that shoddy piece of reporting. I'm sure The Times would deny it, but to connect the timing of the op-ed piece to Chesapeake's conference call one day earlier (in which the CEO confirmed a huge shale oil and gas find in the Utica [Ohio] seems to be a no-brainer).
The CHK conference call, confirming a game-changer in US energy, was aired live July 28, 2011; The Times op-ed piece is dated July 30, 2011, and is now making the rounds.
I was alerted to it by Dave to whom I owe much gratitude.
[On July 29, 2011, after hearing the CHK conference call, I suggested that The New York Times editorial staff read the transcript.]
The two biggest stories on this blog so far this year in terms of number of hits are a) the story on the fire at Cyclone 18; and, b) the shoddy reporting of the original New York Times article. In fact if you google "new york times natural gas" (without the quotation marks), this blog is on the first page of results.
If you add the single word "hoax" to that search (as in: new york times natural gas hoax), this blog is the number one result on google.
I find it curious and interesting that The Times blames their shodding reporting on redacting e-mails. It goes much, much deeper than that.
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The Utica, extends under upstate New York, and if states want to get out of their budgetary and unemployment debacles, they would do well to look at industries that cannot easily be outsourced overseas. And that includes a favorable business climate: appropriate regulation and oversight, appropriate taxation, and a pro-business stance.
The first comment below suggests the same thing: the Brisbane op-ed piece is a trial balloon preparing the liberal base in New York City to support hydraulic fracking in their state. It may be the first bit -- and only bit -- of good news that the state treasurer has had in decades.
