I’ve learned how the game works, from my perch here at Breitling Energy. For one, we advertise and broadcast Powering America Radio on The Patriot, KEIB 1150 AM in Los Angeles, the USAs 2nd largest media market. It also happens to be the transplanted LA home of the Rush Limbaugh show. On occasion, Chris Faulkner’s “Oil and Gas Today” reports fall within the Limbaugh program (it’s called run-of-schedule in broadcasting….where commercials air randomly through the day)..
When they hit his show, here come the emails. People “informing” us of Rush’s bigoted bias and “encouraging” us to not support any station that airs his broadcasts. Well, come to find out, these are mostly not listeners in the LA coverage area at all, as one would think from the tone and structure of their emails. Rather, they are are very well-organized boiler-room liberal operations, mostly out of San Francisco, who monitor advertisers “across the fruited plain” (to borrow a Rush-ism), and send out email, Twitter and Facebook blasts every day trying to get advertisers to pull their spots. It’s deceptive at best, appearing as local listeners, yet I certainly support everyone’s right to free speech. Too bad they can’t just be honest.
Zoom next over to Denver, Colorado. My friend Jon Haubert at CRED (Coloradans for Responsible Energy Development) sent me this graph, reflecting a similar situation there. In response to an insert CRED has been running monthly in The Denver Post, and in which Breitling advertised, here come the complaints. An online petition drive was organized to encourage the Post to STOP the inserts (which have favorable pro-oil and gas stories showing how the shale oil boom is helping Colorado in so many ways). So much for free speech.
Guess how many of these online “respondents” are from Colorado? 10-percent you say? 20? How about 0.67%. That’s zero-point-six-seven (52 people). Less than ¾ of one percent are from the state. Where do they come from? 41% from Europe, where Vladamir Putin is about to choke off their winter warmth. 30% are from the US, mostly….you guessed it….California.
When you hear the uproar against fossil fuels, or conservative talk radio for that matter, realize that what you’re hearing or seeing in social media, probably is not what it appears. These are not average American citizens with a viewpoint, as they would appear. They are boiler-room operatives with an agenda to have you pay far more for your gasoline and utilities (as in California now), and who would prefer you ride a horse and grow your own vegetables.
Powering America Radio is heard daily on the Wall Street Business Network at 4:00 Eastern and is co-sponsored by Crude Energy, LLC and Breitling Energy Corporation.