State Senator Kelly Dooner asked an extremely important question and received an extremely news worthy answer, but the State House News Service didn’t see it that way.
Last Monday Healey’s Secretary of Economic Development Eric Paley testified before a travelling legislative committee at Barnstable Town Hall. Paley told the committee that rising energy costs were “a huge problem" in attracting businesses to Massachusetts.
Headline news by almost measure.
His statement was accurately reported by the State House News Service.
End of story? Not quite.
This is how the SHNS packaged the story that was syndicated to its media membership across the state:
via State House News Service website.
Paley’s “I would say its a huge problem” comment wasn’t quoted until the fourth paragraph and the SHNS printed a banal, establishment-protecting headline: “State ‘working through’ energy cost relief for businesses.”
This was the lede: “BOSTON (SHNS) – Relief may be on the way for businesses struggling with high energy bills, the state’s economic development secretary said Monday.”
SHNS went with the “we’re working on it” angle. Not the “huge problem” angle.
Why?
Listen to the exchange between State Senator Dooner and Paley below. Paley makes three headline news comments in the clip and adds an almost meaningless line about coordinating with utilities:
1) price is a huge problem in attracting business, its on my list of things that slow down economic growth.
2) ten years ago energy was not a top ten question, today it is the #1 question, we have extremely expensive energy.
3) uncertainty relative to the availability of the level of energy needed at a business site, it might take several years, an enormous challenge.
4) we are coordinating, we’ve have conversations with utilities, we have ideas, it is a real set of problems.
Yet, the “working through energy cost relief” angle was the best the SHNS could muster. Somehow that comment had more news value. Or was that comment the least damaging to the current administration?
May we suggest a more accurate headline: “Healey official says energy prices are ‘huge problem’ in attracting business” with a subhead: “can takes years to arrange energy at a manufacturing site, if even available”
That type of news story can result in a cabinet secretary subsequently announcing: “he wants to spend more time with his family.”
It is also by almost any objective measurement, the more news worthy headline.
Add the politically sensitive nature of the topic and it is nearly journalistic malpractice to present the story with the milquetoast headline and lede the SHNS ran with, unless of course your news outlet receives $600K a year from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.