John Hanger Vs. The New York Times: Round 72

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The New York Times Build­ing in Manhattan

For­mer Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Sec­re­tary John Hanger prob­a­bly won’t be see­ing Page One any­time soon.

Hanger has been extremely crit­i­cal of the New York Times’ “Drilling Down” series, which has warned of radioac­tiv­ity in frack­ing fluid, lax drilling reg­u­la­tion in Penn­syl­va­nia, and indus­try con­cern over the future of shale drilling, among other charges.

When reporter Ian Urbina pub­lished his first series of arti­cles about drilling in Penn­syl­va­nia – the pieces con­cern­ing pos­si­ble radioac­tiv­ity — Hanger and for­mer Gov­er­nor Ed Ren­dell sub­mit­ted a blis­ter­ing let­ter to the edi­tor.

If the goal of your report about nat­ural gas drilling was to gra­tu­itously frighten Penn­syl­va­ni­ans, then con­grat­u­la­tions on a job well done. If it was to deliver an even­handed exam­i­na­tion of the crit­i­cal bal­ance that must be achieved between job cre­ation, energy inde­pen­dence and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion in regions with large nat­ural gas deposits, then it was a mighty swing and a miss.

(Sub­se­quent tests car­ried out by the DEP found nor­mal radioac­tiv­ity lev­els in waterways.)

In a sep­a­rate blog post, Hanger called the report “delib­er­ately false,” and accused Urbina of push­ing a “fic­tional nar­ra­tive. Last month, the two went head-to-head on the Diane Rehm show.

Given that his­tory, it’s no sur­prise the Times’ Pub­lic Editor’s crit­i­cism of Urbina’s lat­est report brought out Hanger’s schaden­freude.  Review­ing Urbina’s lat­est story, which exam­ined alleged doubts about shale drilling’s via­bil­ity, Arthur Bris­bane wrote, “My view is that such a pointed arti­cle needed more con­vinc­ing sub­stan­ti­a­tion, more space for a rea­soned expla­na­tion of the other side and more clar­ity about its focus. …[It] went out on a limb, lacked an in-depth dis­sent­ing view in the text and should have made clear that shale gas had boomed.”

Here’s how Hanger responded. Note how he avoided using Urbina’s name.

Today some jus­tice for the cause of the truth has been rendered.

The NYT Pub­lic Edi­tor cen­sures the NYT Reporter and his edi­tor.  His piece is as tough as insid­ers review­ing other insid­ers will ever get.

In the mil­i­tary an equiv­a­lent let­ter of cen­sure to that made by the NYT Pub­lic Edi­tor would end the career of an offi­cer.  The mil­i­tary has a cul­ture of honor, excel­lence, and accountability.

I doubt the NYT insti­tu­tion and its senior man­age­ment will meet those high stan­dards. The NYT Reporter is a rogue within the NYT for as long as he is on its pay­roll, but he is now dis­graced by the con­clu­sions of one of his own. That is a mea­sure of accountability.