From Truth Out: http://truth-out.org/news/item/16757-exposed-fracknation-deploys-tobacco-playbook-in-response-to-gasland-2
By Steve Horn
Tuesday, 04 June 2013
Big Oil has deployed the “Tobacco Playbook” once again, this time in response to the release of “Gasland 2.”
It comes in the form of a documentary film titled, “FrackNation,” whose co-directors’ funding in the past came from Donors Capital and Donors Trust, referred to by Mothers Jones’ Andy Kroll as “” and a major source of funding for climate change denial.
Both “Gasland 2″ and “FrackNation” cover hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), the toxic horizontal drilling process via which unconventional oil and gas is obtained from shale rock basins around the country and world. Co-produced and co-directed by Irish couple Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, “FrackNation” purports to be “funded by the 99 percent to combat the misrepresentations by the 1 percent of urban elites who want to tell rural Americans how to work and live.”
McAleer and McElhinney also say they are independent journalists working independently of corporate funding. McAleer was referred to by the San Francisco Chronicle as “climate denial’s Michael Moore” and both McAler and McElhinney are listed as “experts” by the climate change-denying Heartland Institute.
“FrackNation is an independent film and we want to remain independent of the Gas industry and be funded by ordinary people,” it says on its KickStarter page that it used to raise $212,265 from 3,305 backers of the film between February-April 2012.
This isn’t the first dip in the “doubt is our product” pond for McAleer and McElhinney. In the past, they co-directed and co-produced a pro-mining documentary titled “Mine Your Own Business” and a climate change denial documentary titled, “Not Evil, Just Wrong.”
Filmmaker’s History of Tobacco Playbook Deployment
“FrackNation” made its public debut in Jan. 2013, coinciding with the release of “Promised Land,” a Hollywood drama starring Matt Damon.
Continue reading at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/16757-exposed-fracknation-deploys-tobacco-playbook-in-response-to-gasland-2
