Yesterday, The New York Times released a bombshell op-ed that was allegedly written by a “senior” Trump administration official. The op-ed was highly critical of President Trump and even claimed there was a “resistance” taking place within the upper-echelon of the Trump administration. Because it was published by the New York Times, the left expected that Americans should believe every word of it.
Not so fast…
Perhaps before President Trump took office, Americans would have believed the hit piece in the formerly respected New York Times, but that was before the agenda of leftist publications like the New York Times and CNN were exposed by President Trump for acting more like liberal activists than actual journalists.
Flashback to June 26, 2011: The New York Times published an article written by Ian Urbana, that was supposed to reveal professional opinions about fracking by anonymous experts or officials at the Energy Information Agency or the EIA that were in opposition to public statements made by the government agency. In his article, Urbana cited anonymous senior officials in the EIA who discredited the shale oil industry. The problem is, those senior officials never existed, the anonymous “senior officials” ended up being an intern at the EIA, who Urbana used in his article to push an anti-shale agenda.
Here is a portion of the article published by the New York Times (The red print indicates the portions of the article where Urbana used quotes from anonymous sources that turned out to be an intern at the EIA):
One official says the shale industry may be “set up for failure.” “It is quite likely that many of these companies will go bankrupt,” a senior adviser to the Energy Information Administration administrator predicts. Several officials echo concerns raised during previous bubbles, in housing and in technology stocks , for example, that ended in a bust.
Energy Information Administration employees also explain in e-mails and documents, copies of which were obtained by The New York Times , that industry estimates might overstate the amount of gas that companies can affordably get out of the ground.
They discuss the uncertainties about how long the wells will be productive as well as the high prices some companies paid during the land rush to lease mineral rights. They also raise concerns about the unpredictability of shale gas drilling.
One senior Energy Information Administration official describes an “irrational exuberance” around shale gas. An internal Energy Information Administration document says companies have exaggerated “the appearance of shale gas well profitability,” are highlighting the performance of only their best wells and may be using overly optimistic models for projecting the wells’ productivity over the next several decades.
While there are environmental and economic benefits to natural gas compared with other fossil fuels, its widespread popularity as an energy source is relatively new. As a result, it has not received the same level of scrutiny, according to some environmentalists and energy economists.
The Energy Information Administration e-mails indicate that some of these difficult questions are being raised.
“Am I just totally crazy, or does it seem like everyone and their mothers are endorsing shale gas without getting a really good understanding of the economics at the business level?” an energy analyst at the Energy Information Administration wrote in an April 27 e-mail to a colleague.
Another e-mail expresses similar doubts. “I agree with your concerns regarding the euphoria for shale gas and oil,”wrote a senior officialin the forecasting division of the Energy Information Administration in an April 13 e-mail to a colleague at the administration.
“We might be in a ‘gold rush’ wherein a few folks have developed ‘monster’ wells,” he wrote, “so everyone assumes that all the wells will be ‘monsters.’ ”
But the doubts and concerns expressed in the e-mails and correspondence obtained by The Times are noteworthy because they are shared by many employees, some of them in senior roles. The documents and e-mails, which were provided to The Times by industry consultants, federal energy officials and Congressional researchers, show skepticism about shale gas economics, sometimes even from senior agency officials.
The e-mails were provided by several people to The Times under the condition that the names of those sending and receiving them would not be used.
Film producer, Phelim McAleer was the first to report about the phony anonymous sources the New York Times was caught using in their 2011 anti-shale gas activist piece.
Here is a portion of the Townhall article where McAleer reveals that Trump op-ed hit piece, allegedly written by an anonymous “senior official” was not the first time the New York Times published such a piece that coincidentally fits their radical agenda:
Some of the e-mails suggest frustrations among the staff members in their attempt to push for a more accurate discussion of shale gas. One federal analyst, describing an Energy Information Administration publication on shale gas, complained that the administration shared the industry’s optimism. “It seems that science is pointing in one direction and industry PR is pointing in another,” wrote the analyst about shale gas drilling in an e-mail. “We still have to present the middle, even if the middle neglects to point out the strengths of scientific evidence over PR.”
Well unfortunately for the New York Times the emails were from the Energy Information Agency – a government organization so this meant Senate investigators were able to find the original emails and work out the identity of all these different senior experts. It turns out the federal analyst, the energy analyst and the officer turned out to be the same person who was actually an intern when he wrote the first email and in an entry-level position when he wrote the other comments. Yes, that’s right, the “Paper of Record “ misrepresented an intern/junior employee as a senior official to push an agenda.
Was the New York Times embarrassed when their deception was uncovered? The Senate investigation did attract the attention of the New York Times Public Editor Arthur S Brisbane. “Can an intern be an “official”? It doesn’t sound right to me,” he stated.
Well, it sounded fine to the New York Times editorial board. They stood by their mislabelling of the intern/ low-level employees as a senior official. They later decided they didn’t want their stories to be second-guessed in their own newspaper so they ended the role of public editor in the newspaper. And the reporter who misrepresented the intern, well, he was promoted. Ian Urbina is now a New York Times “investigative reporter based in Washington.” Maybe part of that investigation involved finding someone to write anti-Trump anonymous op/eds posing as a “senior official in the Trump administration.” President Trump is probably wondering who the anonymous official is. Perhaps given the New York Times history of dissembling in this regard he should take his eyes off the cabinet table and wander down to whatever part of the White House holds the interns.
Ian Urbina can be found on Twitter, where he proudly admits to being an “investigative writer” for who President Trump rightfully calls the “Failing New York Times”.
Phelim McAleer is the producer of Fracknation and is currently awaiting the debut of his blockbuster “Gosnell” movie, directed by conservative actor and director, Nick Searcy. The film will be in theaters on October 12th. Go HERE for a list of theaters near you.
