Fracknation

FrackNation is a pro-fracking documentary created by Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, which claims to address what the filmmakers say is misinformation about the process of hydraulic fracturing, commonly called fracking.

Background

McAleer and McElhinney say they are independent journalists working independently of corporate funding. The San Francisco Chronicle describes McAleer as 'climate denial's Michael Moore'. The climate change-denying Heartland Institute lists both McAleer and McElhinney as 'experts'.

Their past films include Not Evil Just Wrong, which challenges Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth by suggesting that the evidence of global warming is inconclusive and that the impact global-warming legislation will have on industry is much more harmful to humans than beneficial.

Another film, Mine Your Own Business(2006), focusing on protests against a proposed large-scale open-pit goldmine project in Romania, was billed as 'the world's first anti-environmentalist documentary'. Gabriel Resources the Canadian mining company behind the project, partly financed the filmakers, who also travelled to Madagascar and Chile, where international environmental groups oppose planned mining operations. The New York Times reported that the film 'portrays environmentalists as condescending elitists while impoverished locals insist they would welcome the jobs and development the mines would bring'.

Fracknation funding

To raise funds, the filmmakers launched a Kickstarter campaign. Within four weeks they had achieved $150,000, with over $22,000 in the first two days of fundraising. Questions were raised over the independence and of some those who donated money: they reportedly included 'the director of an Ohio-based oil and gas outreach program and the head of external affairs at Cabot Oil and Gas, the company that's fought accusations of water contamination in Dimock, Pa., for the past several years.'

Affiliations

• • Market Aces LLC runs Fracknation's email list
• Gabriel Resources
• Moving Picture Institute - McAleer received a fellowship
• Donors Trust / Donors Capital - partially funded Fracknation filmakers' first two films

Articles

Following high profile anti-fracking protests against Cuadrilla Resources proposed drilling in Balcombe in the UK, Fracknation's director Phelim McAleer penned an article, 'Ten big fat lies about fracking' for spiked.

Website

• http://fracknation.com/
• Twitter: @FrackNation
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FrackNation

Resources

• Steve Horn, Exposed: "FrackNation" Deploys Tobacco Playbook in Response to "Gasland 2", Desmogblog.com, 3 June 2013
• Steve Horn, "FrackNation" Part Two: The Koch Industries Ties That Bind, Desmogblog.com, 4 June 2013