Drilling Activists Fight Back Against Industry Ads

Susan Phillips

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Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

October 17, 2011 | 1:35 PM

Ad wars over natural gas drilling have begun. Gas drilling opponents have launched a new ad campaign meant to counter the abundance of pro-industry television, radio and billboard advertising. The Delaware Riverkeeper Network’s campaign will focus on water pollution.
“Have you seen those fancy advertisements that claim natural gas is clean and sustainable?” said Delaware Riverkeeper Maya van Rossum in a press release. “In fact fracked gas is filthy and inevitably causes water, air and land pollution…”
The ads can be seen in the Philadelphia area, along I-95, on SEPTA busses and subway stops. The theme of the ads is “don’t play with fire.” Van Rossum says they will also take the campaign to television viewers if they can raise enough money.

Marcellus Shale Coalition spokesman Travis Windle says industry ads are truthful, but the activists’ ads are not.
“We’re certainly interested in a dialog based in facts and science and by all accounts these efforts by this out-of-the-mainstream group don’t seem to be based on either of those things.”
Expect the ad wars to continue.