Rocky ignored its reporting in article about CORE's "unexpected" opposition to severance tax hike

Summary: Reporting that "Colorado's energy industry" received "some unexpected support" from the Congress of Racial Equality in its fight against a proposed initiative to increase state energy revenues, the Rocky Mountain News omitted that the civil rights group previously had "blasted 'radical environmentalists' " and had acknowledged receiving funding from ExxonMobil.

An April 26 Rocky Mountain News article reported that the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) has given Colorado's energy industry "some unexpected support in its fight against a Gov. Bill Ritter-backed ballot measure to increase revenues the state receives from oil and gas." The article called CORE's opposition to the proposed Initiative 88 "a surprise boost for the oil and gas industry," but in doing so ignored the newspaper's March 5 reporting (accessed through the Nexis database) that CORE national spokesman Niger Innis blasted "radical environmentalists" at a press conference criticizing the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission's pre-draft changes to the state's oil and gas industry regulations and admitted that his group had received funding in recent years from energy giant ExxonMobil Inc.

From the April 26 Rocky Mountain News article, "Rights group joins fight against proposal," by Gargi Chakrabarty:

Colorado's energy industry has some unexpected support in its fight against a Gov. Bill Ritter-backed ballot measure to increase revenues the state receives from oil and gas.

Congress of Racial Equality, a national civil rights group, opposes the measure, as does the industry. Roy Innis, the group's longtime chairman, said the proposal disproportionately would affect the working poor by pushing up energy prices.

[...]

Earlier this week, speaking at a conference in Salt Lake City, Innis said, "The culprit of this new civil rights battle? Environmental policies and laws that increase the cost of energy and economically enslave those Americans who most struggle to climb the ladder of economic success."

Innis' support is a surprise boost for the oil and gas industry as it gears up for a protracted fight.

In contrast to its April 26 article, the News reported on March 5 that Roy Innis' son, Niger, joined state Sen. Bill Cadman (R-Colorado Springs) and state Rep. Wes McKinley (D-Walsh) at a March 4 news conference to criticize the commission's proposed energy development rules:

The politics of oil and race collided at the Capitol on Tuesday.

At a press conference, Sen. Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, and Rep. Wes McKinley, D-Walsh, criticized proposed rules increasing environmental oversight on the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. They said the rules could hurt energy producers, farmers and ranchers and slam consumers with soaring fuel prices.

Then they introduced Niger Innis, head of the New York-based Congress of Racial Equality, who blasted "radical environmentalists" for trying to impose a "de facto regressive tax" that would hurt poor consumers, including minorities.

"When the energy industry gets a cold because of regulations or taxes, my community gets the flu. That's not easy to recover from," said Innis, who is black.

The March 5 news brief also reported, "Innis denied the environmental group Greenpeace's accusation that CORE received $275,000 from Exxon Mobil in recent years, saying his group only got a 'fraction' of that." It also quoted state Rep. Terrance Carroll (D-Denver) as calling CORE "a shill for the oil and gas industry."

—C. H.