INSIGHT-In fracking culture war, celebs, billionaires and banjos

INSIGHT-In fracking culture war, celebs, billionaires and banjos by Joshua Schneyer and Edward McAllister, December 24, 2012, Reuters
Not so long ago, fracking was a technical term little known beyond the energy industry. … The Northern Irish director Phelim McAleer’s documentary, “FrackNation,” is an unabashedly pro-drilling mantra set to air next month on AXS TV, the cable network controlled by Dallas Mavericks owner and media mogul Mark Cuban. McAleer views fracking as “the best thing ever,”…. On the other side of the argument, HBO, the cable pay channel, could air a sequel to “Gasland,” a scathing 2010 documentary from director Josh Fox, as early as next year. The original film featured scenes of tap water erupting into flames and mobilized environmental groups against fracking, drawing full-throated rebuttals from an oil industry that says the process has never caused water problems. Fox declined comment for this article. … “It could become the biggest environmental debate of our time,” said Robert McNally, an energy policy expert and former White House adviser under George W. Bush. “Hollywood is taking notice, and the industry will have its work cut out for it to defend fracking.”
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This year, for the first time, U.S. online searches for the term “fracking” became more popular than “climate change,” Google data showed. Fracking has doubled on Google’s popularity index since last year, and while “global warming” still draws more hits, the gap is narrowing. Drinking water contamination is the leading environmental concern among Americans, according to Gallup polling data. … Whether “Promised Land” will shift public opinion is uncertain. But films with environmental themes often can, according to Joseph Cappella, a professor of communications at the University of Pennsylvania. Past examples include Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” on climate change, and “Erin Brockovich,” a dramatization of real events in which actress Julia Roberts played a legal clerk who uncovers water contamination by a California power company. Ahead of the release of “Promised Land,” some within the oil industry are already reading the film’s script online. “Look, I don’t want to whistle past the graveyard. This film is going to be a challenge, and we’ll just have to see how it does on opening weekend,” said Chris Tucker of pro-drilling group Energy In Depth (EID), which is funded by industry. “In terms of popularization of the issue, it will have an effect.” The oil industry wants to avoid another blow like the one it took from Fox’s 2010 “Gasland” film. Google search data shows online interest in fracking surged immediately afterwards. For three years, Tucker has been working with other communications experts, “pounding the zone with facts” to counter what he calls false claims in “Gasland” and to promote drilling. Films like “Promised Land” will get people curious and send them searching online, said Tucker, where he worries the term ‘fracking’ gets a bad rap. “People will go home and Google it, and the other side does really well on Google,” he said.
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“The lesson of ‘Gasland’ is that public perception is a very big part of the equation,” said Jonathan Wood, a political risk analyst at London-based Control Risks, whose clients include oil companies. In a report this month, Wood wrote that the industry has “largely failed to appreciate social and political risks…” [Emphasis added]