Big oil, its lobby court bloggers in media push

HOUSTON, Nov 21 (Reuters) – Executives at large oil companies often say that the U.S. public — unnerved by high gasoline prices — does not understand or appreciate how expensive it is to keep the nation’s engines running.

And now in a first, two big energy companies and the American Petroleum Institute (API), the U.S. oil industry’s main lobbying group, have reached out to a conservative band of bloggers to tell their story.


“We recognize here that there are many different channels of communications that exist today,” Jane Van Ryan, new media advisor at API, said. “We’ve been looking into the blogosphere for the last several months, and there were a few people who seemed to be a little more knowledgeable about oil and gas.”

Van Ryan noted that the bloggers chosen “have not been particularly critical of the industry.”

Reuters