Media-Bias and Gazprom, or Western media rehashes “tired clichés of Kremlin intrigue”
This week Western media blames Moscow for engaging in a conspiracy to make shale gas unpopular. For example, the opening of one of the articles is sensational and right out of the cold war “The Kremlin is watching, European nations are rebelling, and some suspect Moscow is secretly bankrolling a campaign to derail the West's strategic plans.”
And just like the article says, despite exploiting cliché cold-war terminology from the very start, it’s not about the cold war, or geopolitical machinations or even military cooperation, it’s about natural gas drilling.
The article cites two shale gas fields in the US as evidence of what the writer calls “vast reserves of gas buried in deep shale rock” yet ignores the difficulties in extracting shale gas, the high-cost and the environmental concerns.
The writer also blames Moscow for engaging in a conspiracy to make shale gas unpopular by citing anonymous “industry watchers” who say “Russia is bankrolling environmental groups that are loudly opposing plans for fracking in Europe.” Fracking is the term used for a drilling process called hydraulic fracturing. The writer also fails to mention the real dangers of the practice and tries to paint Russian President Vladimir Putin in a bad or conspiratorial light because he spoke about how dangerous fracking was.
Calling Russian energy giant Gazprom “state controlled” gives the concern a less-than-legitimate connotation and ignores the fact that all energy and strategic industries worldwide are in one way or another “state controlled”, this is true for the US as well.
The article cites low gas prices in the US as something that the has gotten the world’s attention but plays down the fact that, again, shale gas is expensive to extract and that the current prices in the US are abnormally low and will rise in the future. A fact stated by Gazprom executive Sergei Komlev, whom the article cites.
Lastly the article attempts to paint an overall picture that the US may be able to provide cheap gas to Europe and compete for that segment of the Russian gas market, something completely unrealistic but that Americans want to hear, underlined by Mitt Romney who has repeated that he "will pursue policies that work to decrease the reliance of European nations on Russian sources of energy."
The whole article completely ignores many important undeniable facts, one being that part of Russia is physically in Europe, another is that Russia already has pipelines into Europe and is providing Europe with cheap gas, and the last that the US is an Ocean away and has not pipelines or realistically competitive means to get any quantity of gas to Europe, let alone on a regular and competitive basis.
Promises that the US can compete in the European gas market may sound good to the American electorate and in political speeches but lacking a pipeline from Texas to Europe such promises are merely dreams and empty political rhetoric.
The only way for the US to actually compete in the European gas market is for them to take control of resources in the Middle East for example, which would also allow them to compete elsewhere, a fundamental reason for the US’ current resource wars throughout the Middle East.
I am not the only one taking the Western Media to task, this time on the subject of media bias and slanted reporting against Gazprom. Gazprom’s spokesman Sergei Kuprianov also took on the issue much better than I could, being a man who is truly in the know of all of the nuances, in a letter to the Washington Post. According to Mr. Kuprianov the Washington Post ignored the realities of “Gazprom’s recent strategic decisions” and rehashed “tired clichés of Kremlin intrigue”.
“Rehashing tired clichés of Kremlin intrigue” is something the Western Press seems unable to get out of the habit of doing. In case anyone needs reminding, and obviously many do: the Cold War has been over for a very long time people.
Source: The Voice of Russia