Oh Magoo! The Digest Looks at Mainstream Media’s Coverage of Renewables

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June 10, 2016

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by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) The Blundermeisters of Media Misinformation are at it again. The world’s favorite advanced biofuel, biodiesel, gets another hit job from mainstream media. The Digest investigates. -- AFP, the major international news service, reported last week that “Palm oil produced on tropical plantations that drive deforestation has become a major biofuel for vehicles in the European Union, industry figures released Tuesday by an environmental group revealed.”

Well, we could nit-picky about the grammar get. But instead, we’ll look at this story in the context of our 2014 guide to the 10 Top Mistakes in Covering Renewable Fuels.

1. Check facts, avoid expanding locally true conditions to universals, or mistaking upper limits of ranges for medians and averages.

Take this one from the AFP article.

“Second only to rapeseed as a biofuel, overall palm oil use in EU countries jumped six-fold from 2010 to 2015, accounting for a 34 percent increase in biodiesel consumption during that period, the figures showed.”

Sounds pretty definitive, eh? Well, maybe not. The US Foreign Agriculture Service says that EU biodiesel usage has dropped during this period.

...

EU rules allow for double-counting of especially emissions-reducing biodiesel, and obligated parties are able to comply with less blending of biodiesel if they use more emissions-friendly sources — and palm oil biodiesel is not one of them. So it can look like gallons are going up, using one set of figures dervived from mandates, when wet gallons are actually going down.

The source of “the figures showed” is a report issued by an NGO, Transport & Environment, which is actively campaigning against palm oil biodiesel (as is their right) — the figure is from a press release which ties back to a T&E report which makes the claim without any other supporting reference.

2. Don’t wave the bloody shirt.

Try this example we just made up:

“Starbucks lattes compete for ever-scarcer milk needed to feed babies.“

Now, that’s just incendiary. We started with a commonplace fact — that Starbucks lattes contain milk — and inflated it, without any reference to supporting evidence, by introducing the allegation of potential shortage of milk. And we’ve linked this to the most painful possible outcome we can think of — in this case, the effect on innocent babies — generally, to suppress dissent and spur activists to action.

Again, we turn to AFP for evidence that this goes on in everyday journalism:

“These biofuels also compete for ever-scarcer land needed to grow food.”

...

3. Avoid quoting other media as a sole source, without checking the veracity or informing about the age of a given article, or as a substitute for readily available hard data.

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4. Avoid straw-man comparisons.

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5. When citing problems, if there are easy remedies, discuss them and don’t discount them without reason.

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6. Avoid citing “business as usual” as “news”.

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7. Compare apples to apples, and use statistics in reasonable ways with context where data is unfamiliar.

It’s easy, in a fast-moving sector, to make slipshod comparisons by selectively picking out factors and ignoring others. But also, in using data in absurd ways, we can destroy the effectiveness of articles.

...

8. Exaggerated pictures are worth 11,000 words.

Well, we’ve heard the claim that a picture is worth 1,000 words, and when we look at the page views for 8-Slide Guides compared to a 1,000 word article, we tend to be believers.

But what about an article that discusses a 3X change in a market condition, accompanied by a very vivid picture that claims a 33X change in that same condition? Is that fair and balanced?

...

A couple of other Common Mistakes that we have flagged in the past, that we didn’t see here?

1. Use current data, or make a reasonable attempt to secure the latest updates.

In a fast-changing field like renewables, the data shifts fast, and furiously. When we covered, for example, oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) technology this week in the Digest, we could have cited any number of skeptics, writing back in the 1980s or 1990s, who thought that OCM would never be economically viable — but a revolution in the techniques of catalyst design and deployment has opened up new possibilities,. As has a Moore’s Law environment in the costs in genomics.

But, you don’t always have to access the latest scientific journals to get the hard, current data. In oilprice.com this past week, we saw this:

“Using high-percentage biodiesel in your diesel vehicle could, in fact, invalidate the warranty. Mercedes-Benz, one of five manufacturers of diesel-vehicles sold in the U.S., tells potential owners, “Any damages caused by the use of such non-approved fuels will not be covered by the Mercedes-Benz Limited Warranty.”

Oops, not so, grasshopper. Try a tour of the National Biodiesel Board’s up-to-the-minute Scorecard on engine manufacturers, here. There, you see that Mercedes-Benz supports B20 in Illinois, since November 2013.

2. Avoid using facts selectively to form a biased argument.

Facts are sometimes hard to tease out, and reporters are often on tight deadlines, but there’s a clear difference between “not finding a balancing source” and “picking out one damaging factoid out of a list, to lead the reader astray”.

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3. Avoid rating claims that can’t be verified. Practice “if so, then what” journalism where needed.

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The Bottom Line

Reader, beware. Most shortcomings in articles are easy to spot and mild in impact — and no writer is perfect and no article, either. Neither is the Digest.

But epic and multiple fails in one article might rightfully cause you to toss the article — and to weigh it as a factor next time you read the reporter’s work or access that media outlet.

Do keep in mind that new technology is full of question marks — and like a driver who can help mitigate failures by simply maintaining a vehicle properly, you have a role to play when you read:

Bring a degree of skepticism to unusual claims AND some willingness to entertain unusual ideas.

Technology is on a journey, and just because it took a million years for mankind to reach the moon, and the technology that succeeded looked nothing like the first designs, doesn’t mean it was impossible to do. READ MORE

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Oh Magoo! The Digest Looks at Mainstream Media’s Coverage of Renewables

1. Check facts, avoid expanding locally true conditions to universals, or mistaking upper limits of ranges for medians and averages.

2. Don’t wave the bloody shirt.

3. Avoid quoting other media as a sole source, without checking the veracity or informing about the age of a given article, or as a substitute for readily available hard data.

4. Avoid straw-man comparisons.

5. When citing problems, if there are easy remedies, discuss them and don’t discount them without reason.

6. Avoid citing “business as usual” as “news”.

7. Compare apples to apples, and use statistics in reasonable ways with context where data is unfamiliar.

8. Exaggerated pictures are worth 11,000 words.

1. Use current data, or make a reasonable attempt to secure the latest updates.

2. Avoid using facts selectively to form a biased argument.

3. Avoid rating claims that can’t be verified. Practice “if so, then what” journalism where needed.

The Bottom Line

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