I would assume the slant comes as a directive from the owner, Johnston Press, or from the editor if they have that discretion.
I have never worked in professional journalism, but every story I ever read says it is completely normal to have an editorial line on many topics. The starry-eyed ideals of journalism were, apparently, very rarely true, anywhere.

Where does an editor take his/her line from in the absence of orders from above? Presumably from whatever they think the competitors are doing. Going against the herd is often a perilous strategy.

The downside is obvious from the climate-skeptical perspective, but it is a sword that cuts both ways. When the whole field changes direction, or merely loses interest, then the boot is on the other foot: There is now hardly a day goes by without the BBC now harping on about plastics. While no less egregious than their coverage of CO2, it is probably a lot less harmful for the global economy if they go off chasing some other wild goose that attracts their attention.

I'm not too concerned with the media anti fracking narrative. The shale gas isn't going anywhere and the technology seems to be constantly improving. If we get to the stage where we suddenly need cheaper gas and shale gas is economically viable here I assume we could get it up and running fairly quickly.

I recall Rob Burton's argument being made about the big, multinationals like Shell and MobilExxon about why they weren't involved in the shale-gas exploration in its infancy. The response was that MobilExxon were big enough to wait it out, and that if, in the future, it turned out that shale gas was important they were big enough to buy their way in. They weren't.

Did I?

My interest in the oil industry is mainly having to do with having done a Geophysics degree and actually going out to see the UK oil industry in the field. Going to darkest Dorset and seeing the Vibraseis trucks in action doing seismic surveying was awesome. The bored truck drivers also had there fun throwing huge quantities of cowpats at the group of spotty students who had shown up to see them.

Also being a massive hiker I often walked the Dorset coast (studying at Soton) and a really weird sight to come across a nodding donkey pumping oil in England just where you were going to pitch your tent for the night. Also relevant in that Wytch farm has been fracking for decades in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and it really is beautiful down there.

Though still being interested in the really amazing oil/mineral extraction sector I did take the easy option instead and started a climate science degree instead ;-)

"we really do not know if shale gas extraction is economically viable"

RR, Why do we never get even basic numbers for this? Surely the costs extraction of X amount if gas must be reasonably well known. So some statement such as we can afford to di this if gas sells at Y dollars per pint..... or whatever with at least some level of accuracy.

All I ever read about is the super Pro versus super Anti argument with zero pragmatic middle ground whatsoever. Just like the ridiculous leaps of faith/lies to make some renewables more viable than they really are (ie lets get solar going in Spain/Portugal/Arizona before pushing it too much in Scotland...)

I notice there has recently been some almost gleeful claims about some report of how industry and/or government had over-estimated the likely number of fracked wells in the future. Some of them use the word "exaggeration". I haven't yet seen any of them suggest that the now-reduced estimated number might actually be due to the successful political obstruction of fracking development. Obstruction loudly promoted by the same people now accusing the industry of exaggeration!

It's just like the attacks on the nuclear industry: Campaigners against nuclear were instrumental in successfully increasing costly regulation of the industry, above and beyond what is needed. They then started campaigning against nuclear by additionally asserting that it is also uneconomic.

It's a well established mainstay of environmental politics. The co-ordinated campaign by the BBC and cronies suggests they now think they are going to do something similar with plastics, though they probably haven't stopped to think yet about how a "plastic" is legally defined. What if it's made from modified cellulose (aka wood)? Once again, they are not thinking about real solutions to their alleged problems, because they don't actually want solutions.

And to provide the same amount of energy using unreliables takes how many more such stadia sized eyesores?
10x 100x