Yesterday, Rupert Murdoch’s Australian capital city mastheads splashed a story across the front page. The problem though, is that it was not news at all, but an advertorial for the gas industry dressed up as news.
Reporting for The Guardian, climate and environment editor Adam Morton said: “It was an advertorial paid for by a fossil fuel industry. Not that readers glancing at page one of the Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, Courier-Mail or Adelaide Advertiser were let in on this secret.”
The articles were splashed across all the Murdoch tabloids, and were not an “exclusive” nor a “special report,” nor an “investigation” with homes to face “blackouts and soaring prices,” according to the Herald Sun ‘exclusive.’
It was nothing more than an advertorial, paid for by gas companies, dressed up as news and an “exclusive.” It was an ad for the gas industry that Murdoch dressed up as news.
It would appear this is the fossil fuel industry lobbying as more people switch to renewable energy such as heat pumps, solar hot water systems and similar.
The articles were backed with arguments and quotes from the bosses of Woodside, Santos, APA and the oil and gas lobby group the Australian Energy Producers, which until a recent marketing shift was known as the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association.
Parts of this article are taken from “How can News Corp call its gas splash an ‘exclusive’ and a ‘special report’ when it’s paid for by industry?” by Adam Morton, reporting for The Guardian.
