When watching the two videos on the Texaco and Ecuador oil situation I noticed a few things. First, the 60 Minutes segment seemed to lead toward being on the side of the Ecuadorians. They tried to cast Chevron/Texaco in a negative light and set up interview questions that way. At one point I caught myself thinking that they were purposely setting up the Chevron spokesperson to get her to slip up. To me, that doesn't seem very "fair and balanced". It may have just been me but I also noticed that they spent a good deal of effort in trying to expose the poor conditions of the Ecuadorians regardless of whether or not the oil drilling had an impact on it. The biggest problem I had with the first video was that Chevron was not given a fair amount of airtime to dispute the claims and show their side of the story.
The second video was more of what I expected from what I had heard about it. Chevron hired a reporter to show their side of the story so when I started the video I expected to only get one side. They made sure to discredit as much of the Ecuadorian side of the story as possible and they did their job. They also did not give the other side any chance to put in their opinion which is what I expected.
Neither video was what I would consider newsworthy. The 60 Minutes piece tries to say it is news but without a fair and balanced report I don't think it is. The Chevron piece is even less newsworthy than the 60 Minutes piece.
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