https://www.npr.org/2024/03/28/1239650727/chevron-fossil-fuel-richmond-standard-california-news

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Chevron owns this city's news site. Some stories aren't told Chevron
operates a major refinery in Richmond, Calif. It also owns the city's
dominant news site, putting its own spin on events, and runs similar
sites in Texas and Ecuador.

Media

Chevron owns this city's news site. Many stories aren't told

March 28, 20245:59 AM ET
Heard on All Things Considered

By 

Miranda Green

, 

David Folkenflik 2018 square

David Folkenflik

Chevron owns this city's news site. Many stories aren't told

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[richmond_0]
Enlarge this image

Chevron operates a major refinery in Richmond, Calif., a community
with high childhood asthma rates. It also owns the city's dominant
news site, putting its own spin on events, and runs similar websites
in Texas and Ecuador. Tracy J. Lee for NPR hide caption

toggle caption
Tracy J. Lee for NPR

Chevron operates a major refinery in Richmond, Calif., a community
with high childhood asthma rates. It also owns the city's dominant
news site, putting its own spin on events, and runs similar websites
in Texas and Ecuador.

Tracy J. Lee for NPR

NPR's David Folkenflik reported this story with Miranda Green of
Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful
interests stalling climate action.

RICHMOND, Calif. -- Open flames shot upward from four smokestacks at
the Chevron refinery on the western edge of Richmond, Calif. Soon,
black smoke blanketed the sky.

News spread quickly that day last November, but by word of mouth,
says Denny Khamphanthong, a 29-year-old Richmond resident. "We don't
know the full story, but we know that you shouldn't breathe in the
air or be outside for that matter," Khamphanthong says now. "It would
be nice to have an actual news outlet that would actually go out
there and figure it out themselves."

The city's primary local news source, The Richmond Standard, didn't
cover the flare. Nor had it reported on a 2021 Chevron refinery
pipeline rupture that dumped nearly 800 gallons of diesel fuel into
San Francisco Bay.

Chevron is the city's largest employer, largest taxpayer and largest
polluter. Yet when it comes to writing about Chevron, The Richmond
Standard consistently toes the company line.

And there's a reason for that: Chevron owns The Richmond Standard.

"If you look at Chevron's website and you look at The Richmond
Standard, a lot of the information is copy and paste," says Katt
Ramos, a local climate activist. "They present a very skewed
viewpoint that is bought and paid for by Chevron."

The site's very name evokes the history of Chevron, created when John
D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil was broken up by federal trust-busters
more than a century ago. The Richmond Standard prides itself on being
the "number one source for local, community-driven news" about the
city.

[z62_5693_c]
Enlarge this image

The city of Richmond exists in the shadow of the nearby Chevron
refinery, which has been connected to poor air quality and health
issues in the nearby community. Brian L. Frank for NPR hide caption

toggle caption
Brian L. Frank for NPR

The city of Richmond exists in the shadow of the nearby Chevron
refinery, which has been connected to poor air quality and health
issues in the nearby community.

Brian L. Frank for NPR

Around town, in coffee shops, an architect's office, at a Mexican
restaurant, even at a waterside National Park Service site, the
Standard is recognized as the main source of news about the city. It
carries stories about charity drives and street closings. New bars
and art exhibits. Youth soccer events and local concerts and safety
initiatives.

Decades ago, the city relied on the Richmond Independent and the San
Francisco Chronicle to report on the community. And then a pattern
familiar across the U.S. unfolded. The Chronicle pulled back. The
Independent got folded into a newspaper in nearby Berkeley, which
itself shut down in 1984. Papers in other East Bay cities shriveled
up. Now the city's news landscape is dominated by its major corporate
force.

Markets where news outlets shut down are often called news deserts.
The Standard has created something of a news mirage: Stories are told
-- but with an agenda. Facts displeasing to Chevron are omitted; hard
truths softened. The company is seeking to get its point of view
across and to convey that it can be trusted.

On a recent February night, a city council meeting focused repeatedly
on developments involving Chevron. Not a single journalist attended
in person -- other than those for NPR and Floodlight.

The same San Francisco public relations firm that operates the
Standard for Chevron runs a similar site about developments in the
Permian Basin in West Texas and New Mexico, where Chevron has major
business interests. It also runs one of the company's sites in
Ecuador, where the energy giant has fought back decades of
litigation.

[z62_5591_c]
Enlarge this image

The Richmond Standard is a local news site funded by Chevron, which
runs the large refinery in town. Brian L. Frank for NPR hide caption

toggle caption
Brian L. Frank for NPR

The Richmond Standard is a local news site funded by Chevron, which
runs the large refinery in town.

Brian L. Frank for NPR

Chevron's bid to control the public discourse comes as efforts to
combat climate change threaten the fossil fuel industry, especially
in California. State regulators would effectively ban the sales of
gas-powered cars by 2035. They released the world's first plan to
achieve net-zero carbon pollution. Other states and countries have
adopted similar goals.

In February, Chevron revealed that it was taking a loss of about $1.8
billion on assets mainly in California, because of a tougher
regulatory climate in the state. Chevron's corporate headquarters is
in San Ramon, about a 35-mile drive southeast of Richmond, though the
company has moved the bulk of its workforce to Texas.

"The company saw a need to offer the community more news coverage of
Richmond, which had been largely ignored by traditional media with
the exception of crime stories," said Braden Reddall, a manager of
external affairs at Chevron. "Most people in Richmond will tell you
there is a lot more to the community than what is known and reported
by traditional media outlets. It's a proud community, filled with
interesting people who are doing interesting things."

Other outlets more than adequately cover Chevron, added Reddall, who
earlier covered the company for the international news service
Reuters.

[l1000858_c]
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Former schoolteacher Patricia Dornan says she reads The Richmond
Standard but skips the stories about Chevron. "I don't read any of
the articles about how wonderful their company is," she says. Brian
L. Frank for NPR hide caption

toggle caption
Brian L. Frank for NPR

Former schoolteacher Patricia Dornan says she reads The Richmond
Standard but skips the stories about Chevron. "I don't read any of
the articles about how wonderful their company is," she says.

Brian L. Frank for NPR

Lifelong Richmond resident Patricia Dornan says she cherry-picks
which stories she reads in the Standard.

"If you understand that it's going to have a Chevron-Standard Oil
point of view, it's fine because most of the stuff that they're
putting out has nothing to do with them," says Dornan, a retired
middle school teacher. "And so long as it doesn't have to do with
Chevron, it's fine. I don't read any of the articles about how
wonderful their company is."

Dornan volunteers at the Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front
National Historical Park. She tells visitors about the marvels of
American manufacturing in a time of war and about the women welders
of Richmond who were able to turn out warships in 51 days rather than
two years.

Loading...

Her grandmother moved to town in 1905 -- just three years after the
refinery first opened -- and her family has been there ever since. One
of the streets in town is named after her father. She says Richmond
can't function without Chevron, but a true local news outlet would
help hold it accountable to the community.

When she wants to know what Chevron is up to, Dornan says, "I usually
ask my friends who are retirees from the refinery -- what's going on?"

"Richmond deserves more news coverage"

When the Standard launched in 2014, it proclaimed: "Richmond deserves
more news coverage."

"For the first time in more than 30 years, Richmond will have a
community-driven daily news source dedicated to shining a light on
the positive things that are going on in the community," the site
announced.

Chevron presents the Standard as an investment in the Richmond
community. The public relations firm operating the Standard wrote,
"This site would tell the stories other outlets had lost the
resources to tell."

But not all of the stories.

In the Southeast, power company money flows to news sites that attack
their critics

Media

In the Southeast, power company money flows to news sites that attack
their critics

She was an ABC News producer. She also was a corporate operative

Media

She was an ABC News producer. She also was a corporate operative

A recent review found The Richmond Standard had published 434 stories
that touch on its owner, Chevron, since the site's inception. Eight
articles refer to flaring incidents. None cite oil spills. The
majority of the stories that mention Chevron focus on profiles,
awards ceremonies, community projects and celebrations it throws on
such occasions as Black History and Hispanic Heritage months.

When Bay Area air pollution regulators secured landmark concessions
from Chevron in February to settle a lawsuit, they called it a
"decisive victory." The San Jose Mercury News headline cited "$20
million in fines for hundreds of air-quality violations."

The Richmond Standard was more reserved: "Chevron agreement with Air
District called win for environment and energy."

The article did not clearly lay out the core of the litigation. The
words "fine" and "penalty" did not appear. Careful readers might have
been able to piece together what transpired: The news outlet
described an agreement involving $20 million that "solidifies the
future of energy production at the Richmond Refinery."

"There are a whole host of news outlets around the Bay Area that
cover the refinery," said Reddall, the Chevron spokesperson. "The
Standard seeks to fill in the gaps. From where I'm sitting, I don't
think that it's a refinery that's not written about."

[l1001528_c]
Enlarge this image

Richmond is a working-class city of 115,000 -- nearly half of whom are
Latino. Most of the people who work at the Chevron refinery live
outside the city. Brian L. Frank for NPR hide caption

toggle caption
Brian L. Frank for NPR

Richmond is a working-class city of 115,000 -- nearly half of whom are
Latino. Most of the people who work at the Chevron refinery live
outside the city.

Brian L. Frank for NPR

A news mirage

Boundaries blur between city and corporation in this largely
working-class city of 115,000 people, almost half of whom are Latino.
The tech boom of nearby Silicon Valley and the opulence of
neighboring Marin County feel like universes away.

The public high school's mascot is the Oilers. Streets are named
Ammonia and Petrolite and Xylene. Chevron's network of pipes,
low-lying cooling ponds and even sulfuric stench have become defining
parts of the town's character. A nature park where tufted egrets and
hummingbirds frolic abuts the nearly 3,000-acre refinery itself -- an
expansive preserve of smokestacks, pipelines and tanks.

Chevron, which recorded $21.3 billion in profits last year, has
played an outsized role in Richmond for decades. It supplies the city
with jobs -- yet most Chevron employees live elsewhere. It pays
roughly $50 million a year to Richmond -- more than a sixth of the
town's annual revenue.

The company's relationship with Richmond turned sour rather abruptly
in 2012. An explosion at the refinery injured 19 employees. The air
pollution from the resulting industrial fire could be seen from miles
away. In the ensuing days, 15,000 Bay Area residents went to medical
centers for respiratory complications.

[z62_5002_c]
Enlarge this image

The Richmond High School mascot is the Oilers. Brian L. Frank for NPR
hide caption

toggle caption
Brian L. Frank for NPR

The Richmond High School mascot is the Oilers.

Brian L. Frank for NPR

State and local prosecutors charged Chevron with criminal negligence
and other crimes; the company settled by pleading no contest to six
charges, paying out roughly $10 million to affected local residents,
agencies and hospitals. Chevron also paid $5 million directly to the
city of Richmond to settle a separate civil lawsuit.

By the time of the incident, political sentiment in Richmond started
to swing away from the company. As the months passed, progressives
were threatening to take control of the city government. They
promoted a future without the refinery -- just as Chevron was seeking
approval from city officials for a sweeping project to overhaul and
modernize it.

As the 2014 election cycle dawned, Chevron took action to make sure
its voice was heard. It promised a huge investment in scholarships
and public health programs.

Chevron also spent $3 million to help propel pro-industry candidates.
They all lost. "The election became a referendum on Chevron," said
Tom Butt, at the time a city council member who won election as
mayor.

Chevron also launched The Richmond Standard that year.

From the outset, the company disclosed its involvement. In small
letters at the top of its homepage, the site reads "Funded by
Chevron."

[z62_5353_c]
Enlarge this image

Tom Butt was elected mayor of Richmond in 2014. He says that election
was a referendum on Chevron. Brian L. Frank for NPR hide caption

toggle caption
Brian L. Frank for NPR

Tom Butt was elected mayor of Richmond in 2014. He says that election
was a referendum on Chevron.

Brian L. Frank for NPR

In the aftermath of the election, the Standard published a 428-word
statement from Chevron in its entirety that defended the company's
actions and criticized the city's new leaders. "The question for
Richmond is: Will local leaders recognize that business is integral
to the city's success?" the Chevron statement read. "Or, will city
leaders continue to oppose efforts to create growth, preferring
instead to watch the business climate -- and the prosperity that
business helps generate -- decline?"

"We should be outraged"

Katt Ramos, who helps lead Communities for a Better Environment's
Richmond chapter, stages tours to demonstrate what she says is
Chevron's destructive legacy. It also illustrates what happens when
independent local news disappears.

She stops by Peres K-8 School in the Iron Triangle, a nickname
derived from the three train tracks that intersect here. Older kids
play soccer on a field with a coach while younger ones cavort on a
playground. Beyond the school fence, the Chevron plant stands less
than a mile away. A sign next to the school's entrance warns of a
shallow hazardous liquid pipeline from the refinery, a warning to not
dig there.

"Nothing that is normalized about childhood is normalized in
Richmond," Ramos says. Adults have to tell kids they can't play
outdoors due to a high number of bad air days, she says.

[z62_4959_c]
Enlarge this image

"Nothing that is normalized about childhood is normalized in
Richmond," says Katt Ramos, a local climate activist. She says the
city's air pollution problems and residents' health issues are rarely
covered in the news. Brian L. Frank for NPR hide caption

toggle caption
Brian L. Frank for NPR

"Nothing that is normalized about childhood is normalized in
Richmond," says Katt Ramos, a local climate activist. She says the
city's air pollution problems and residents' health issues are rarely
covered in the news.

Brian L. Frank for NPR

Perhaps the best way of gauging the seriousness of such concerns is
to look at child admissions to emergency rooms for asthma, says Anne
Kelsey Lamb, who oversees asthma research for the Oakland-based
Public Health Institute. Children in the ZIP code of the Iron
Triangle -- which includes the refinery as well as the neighborhoods
surrounding the Peres school -- are admitted for emergency care for
asthma at triple the rate for California at large. (The institute
provided an analysis of the most recent available state statistics at
the request of NPR and Floodlight.)

Parceling out responsibility for air pollution is complicated, given
Richmond's many highways and railroads, along with the refinery. The
regional board that regulates air quality found that Chevron accounts
for 63% of all particle pollution in Richmond and two neighboring
towns.

These issues rarely get covered, Ramos says. She starts to weep
gently when talking about the city's future.

"I think at best we should be outraged, you know?" she says.
"Everyone should be concerned about the conditions that our community
has to face."

The PR firm running the Standard

While Chevron owns the Standard, San Francisco-based Singer
Associates runs it from across the bay. The consulting firm is known
for handling PR crises. Founder Sam Singer is no stranger to
Richmond; he grew up in Berkeley and briefly worked at the Richmond
Independent and a sister paper before moving on.

Singer Associates has written that the news outlet came about after
Chevron developed a "fractured relationship with many stakeholders
including city government leaders." The site was part of an effort
"to provide the company with greater freedom to operate by increasing
awareness for the positive role it plays in Richmond," according to
Singer's application for an industry award, as cited in a U.S. House
Natural Resources Committee staff report.

[l1001474_c]
Enlarge this image

A man fishes for leopard sharks in the waterways along Point Richmond
that are a thoroughfare for petroleum and have been the site of
several oil and chemical spills. Brian L. Frank for NPR hide caption

toggle caption
Brian L. Frank for NPR

A man fishes for leopard sharks in the waterways along Point Richmond
that are a thoroughfare for petroleum and have been the site of
several oil and chemical spills.

Brian L. Frank for NPR

Most Standard articles are written by Singer Associates employee Mike
Aldax, a former reporter for the defunct San Francisco Examiner and
the Bay City News Service. (Aldax did not return messages seeking
comment.) The site also hired two journalists who live in Richmond to
write for the site.

"Our team has worked hard to build relationships with the community,
which is why people trust us, and turn to us, to cover community
stories," Singer wrote in an email for this story.

The pace of reporting ebbs and flows. Some featured videos on the
Standard's homepage are several years old. The metabolism of fresh
posts stepped up in early March, shortly after NPR and Floodlight
first sent a series of queries about the Standard to Chevron and
Singer for this story.

Chevron newsrooms begin in South America

In launching the Standard, Chevron followed a path the fossil fuel
giant had first forged thousands of miles to the south.

Since 2009, Singer has run The Amazon Post in Ecuador at Chevron's
direction. The English-language site emerged as Chevron confronted
lengthy multibillion-dollar litigation seeking to hold it liable for
the pollution from oil drilling there. (Chevron had acquired Texaco
in 2001, which was responsible for the oil extraction.) Chevron's
legal battle spread to other nations, including the U.S. and Brazil.
The American attorney who led the suits against Chevron for
Ecuadorian farmers and Indigenous peoples was a frequent target of
the site. He was ultimately disbarred in New York for his actions in
the case.

[gettyimage]
Enlarge this image

Flames flicker through the thick green trees of the Ecuadorian Amazon
rainforest -- where gas flares, oil wells and refineries darken the
landscape and poison the environment -- shown in Shushufindi, Ecuador,
in 2023. The legacy there of Texaco, which Chevron acquired, has
inspired lengthy legal battles in several countries. Pedro Pardo/AFP
via Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty Images

Flames flicker through the thick green trees of the Ecuadorian Amazon
rainforest -- where gas flares, oil wells and refineries darken the
landscape and poison the environment -- shown in Shushufindi, Ecuador,
in 2023. The legacy there of Texaco, which Chevron acquired, has
inspired lengthy legal battles in several countries.

Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty Images

The Amazon Post caters to English-speaking audiences and clearly
discloses that it reflects "Chevron's Views & Opinions on the Ecuador
Lawsuit."

A subsequent Spanish-language site called Juicio Crudo (an allusion
to crude oil) focuses squarely on a damning legal judgment against
Chevron that a U.S. court later found to be fraudulent. It reprints
text directly from Chevron's Spanish-language press releases.

By contrast, El Oriente, a Spanish-language digital outlet launched
in 2019, presents itself as a news site aimed at audiences who reside
in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Until recently, it noted at the bottom of its page that it is
"sponsored by Chevron." Days after NPR and Floodlight started posing
questions about Chevron's sites, the affiliation was moved to the
top, just beneath the site's name.

The sites link to one another. Chevron says those sites are managed
separately, not by Singer.

In at least one instance, the controversies surrounding Chevron in
Ecuador inspired fodder for the Standard back in Richmond.

In 2014, Richmond's then-mayor, Gayle McLaughlin, traveled to see
Ecuador's environmental degradation at a time when her party was
seeking to force Chevron to pay more to the city.

Shortly after she returned home, the Standard's Aldax reported: "The
mayor's six-day trip to Ecuador was in support [of] the South
American nation in its ongoing battle against Chevron, which it
falsely blames for polluting the rain forest."

Aldax wrote that McLaughlin was late in filing $4,499 in expenses for
the trip, which had been paid for by the Ecuadorian government. The
article embedded a video produced by The Amazon Post.

[gettyimage]
Enlarge this image

Gayle McLaughlin, then Richmond's mayor, speaks onstage during a 2014
event in Los Angeles. Mike Windle/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
Mike Windle/Getty Images

Gayle McLaughlin, then Richmond's mayor, speaks onstage during a 2014
event in Los Angeles.

Mike Windle/Getty Images

It was a rare instance of the Standard producing anything other than
benign community news. She had to pay a $200 fine.

Today, McLaughlin calls her misstep minor. She tells NPR and
Floodlight she believes the story was intended as a warning to
Chevron's critics that it could embarrass them or just ignore them
altogether.

Politicians say this Florida news site lets them buy coverage. Is
your state next?

Media

Politicians say this Florida news site lets them buy coverage. Is
your state next?

"The Richmond Standard will never, ever print anything that is
critical of Chevron," McLaughlin says, "and it will never print
anything that upholds the community's victories against Chevron. And
we need to spread the word about those victories."

Expanding to Texas

Chevron launched its latest newsroom, called Permian Proud, in the
Permian Basin in August 2022.

The site posts stories about West Texas and New Mexico. They are home
to the nation's highest-producing oil fields, where Chevron has
substantial drilling interests -- and where local news has been hard
hit. Permian Proud explained its mission this way: "We aim to
complement the important work of existing local media by providing
hyper-local news you won't find anywhere else."

Unlike California, Texas is a deeply red state with a broader base of
support for the oil and gas industry. Even so, Chevron's future there
is similarly deeply reliant on the goodwill of residents and
regulators.

"Over the past year and a half, Permian Proud has put a spotlight on
national spelling bee contestants, the local arts community,
nonprofit organizations, community events, high school sports,
industry accomplishments, and much more," Chevron spokesperson Catie
Matthews wrote in a statement for this story. "Additionally, the
platform has amplified coverage of local stories by other news
outlets, and provided a digital arm to some of our rural communities
and smaller nonprofit organizations who would otherwise not have
one."

Permian Proud also promotes Chevron's perspective.

Many of the articles on the site are rewritten press releases. For
example, Permian Proud's article "Chevron's Permian Basin operations
to tap into more recycled water," is almost identical to Chevron's
press release. The original text read, "By using recycled water in
our fracking operations, we help preserve fresh water and groundwater
in drought-prone areas." Permian Proud swapped "Chevron helps" for
"we help."

Among the few listed bylines: Mike Aldax of Singer and The Richmond
Standard.

[z62_4979_c]
Enlarge this image

Ramos says locals share news about Chevron by word of mouth because
The Richmond Standard is "giving us the opposite of the truth." Brian
L. Frank for NPR hide caption

toggle caption
Brian L. Frank for NPR

Ramos says locals share news about Chevron by word of mouth because
The Richmond Standard is "giving us the opposite of the truth."

Brian L. Frank for NPR

Relying on word of mouth

In the absence of independent local news sources, Richmond residents
say they rely on each other for accurate information.

A husband-and-wife team started a small news site last year. A former
mayor shares his thoughts about local politics in a newsletter. When
school is in session, journalism students at the nearby University of
California, Berkeley cover Richmond as part of their studies. A
nonprofit group has held listening sessions about plans to extend a
hyperlocal site to the area. And sometimes -- when the news is big
enough -- San Francisco TV stations cross the bay to cover it.

But mostly, there's word of mouth. Activist Katt Ramos points to the
February 2021 pipeline rupture. As Chevron publicly conceded, a
resident spotted the tainted water long before Chevron or any news
outlet alerted the community.

"A lot of our news is really from me, gathered by our local kind of
independent folks that go around covering things for us," Ramos said.
"Because we have to deal with publications like The Richmond Standard
that are giving us the opposite of the truth."

Felicia Alvarez, Maria Fernanda Bernal and Richard Tzul of the
University of California at Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism
contributed to this report.

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