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Sometimes the media gets it right

Posted: July 7, 2008 at 10:21 AM CST

As a journalist, I can’t help notice that we — the American ethanol industry — so often focus on the bad journalism being produced by U.S. newspapers, television and radio. Because we’re experts in our field, we forget that the rest of the world, hard-working reporters and editors included, can’t possibly have the comprehensive, insider understanding of biofuels that we do. We notice when they get it wrong. And, yes, they get it wrong too often. But we should also notice when they get it right … when they do a story that calls attention to something we were not aware of … something that verifies our claims or bolsters our cause.

Last week, the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News got it right, breaking a big story about the nation’s largest chicken producer giving the Republican Governor’s Association, a group chaired by Texas Gov. Rick Perry, $100,000 six days after a meeting that prompted Perry to request a national waiver from the federal renewable fuels standard.

Working in tandem, the two newspapers obtained 596 pages of records from the governor's office through the Texas Public Information Act. That’s investigative reporting! Those records revealed that following the donation to the Republican Governors Association from Pilgrim’s Pride co-founder Lonnie "Bo" Pilgrim, Perry's staff began preparing to submit the renewable fuel standards waiver request to the Environmental Protection Agency. The money also reportedly helped buy Pilgrim an in-person appearance before the Republican governors during a closed-door energy conference.

Perry and his staff say the assertion of a connection is absurd, of course, but scoffing at this allegation doesn’t dismiss the fact that Perry's staff coordinated preparation of the waiver request with Pilgrim's Pride lobbyist Gaylord Hughey of Tyler and Cliff Angelo with Public Strategies, the firm handling a PR campaign against ethanol for Pilgrim's Pride, according to the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News.

Perry is scheduled to meet with EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson this month to discuss the waiver. What do you want bet Johnson read the story?

Good journalism prevails, finally.

-Tom Bryan