I’m retiring. While I loved being an energy journalist, reporters have become collateral damage in the conflict between fossil fuels and green energy

I idealized journalists and I wanted to be one so badly I got my first real job in the media as a teenager, but I moved into business journalism in mid-career for self-serving reasons. I was a mother dependent on daycare and I needed a beat that involved regular hours. When the Financial Post hired me two decades ago as a Calgary-based correspondent, I was thrilled to be assigned the king of business beats: oil and gas.

There were few female business reporters at the time and even fewer covering the oilpatch, which was then largely male, Alberta-centric, and dominated by geoscientists with their own lore and language.

I was a bit of a misfit. Born and raised in Italy, schooled in Toronto and Montreal, I had an accent (my mother tongue is Italian, my second is French, and I learned to write English as an ESL student). But I knew how to read a balance sheet, was never afraid to get mud on my shoes, and I loved a challenge.

It has been an incredible journey, more professionally rewarding than any of the areas I previously covered — and I will miss it. This week I am joining my husband in retirement and with this final column I thank those who walked that journey with me – the many loyal readers, the thousands of people I interviewed, the talented editors who supported me, and of course Postmedia and its predecessors companies, which hired me, re-hired me, or acquired me five times over my career.

In the early days of my assignment, the oilpatch was so eager for mainstream national media exposure that I was greeted with open arms. Likewise, there was big demand for oil and gas reporting by investors, the FP’s main audience.

During my first trips to Fort McMurray to cover the nascent oilsands’ sector, company executives were so proud of their operations they personally hosted tours. Oil and gas analysts were accessible and took the time to explain the nuts and bolts. Maverick CEOs couldn’t wait to tell their stories. One of my favourites was the late J.C. Anderson, who headed his company into his 70s and took naps over the lunch hour on a worn leather couch he called Big Blue.

Canadian oil and gas companies were so technically competent, so admired because of their high environmental and ethical standards, they were sought after internationally. The FP had decent travel budgets and I got to report from oilfields across Canada, the United States and around the world.

Claudia Cattaneo in an abaya, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

One trip still makes me smile. I was one of the energy reporters invited by Saudi Arabia’s late King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to view the country’s operations. He was concerned about claims that the country’s oil reserves were not as big as advertised so he wanted to show off Saudi Aramco’s oil operations. The airline temporarily lost my luggage and I arrived in Riyadh with no appropriate outfits. It didn’t matter because like all female reporters I was ordered to wear an abaya, a black cloak that covered me from head to toe. I didn’t like it but I played along. A fellow reporter from Italy was so outraged she wore the garment and nothing else.

Other assignments were hard. During a trip to Sudan I got very sick.
I also covered the start of the Mackenzie Valley pipeline hearings in mid-January, when the temperature was -45 C and I had to walk a fair distance to the venue. I took all types of bush planes and helicopters and landed in places like frozen lakes in Saskatchewan’s North and offshore production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. In Ecuador, while visiting a company’s Amazon operation, I visited oilfields escorted by armed security guards because of recent kidnappings. I worked briefly in corporate communications but I was bored and felt disempowered. Journalism quickly pulled me back. 

I felt one of the important roles of journalists is to get to the truth and see things first hand, because they always look different on the ground than they do from the desk. I sought people at the heart of issues, from company decision makers to Indigenous chiefs, community members to blue-collar workers, because they are the best sources of their own stories.

Oil and gas reporting has changed a lot, reflecting both the disruption in mainstream media and the war between fossil fuels and green energy.

It now takes real courage to do it.

Reporters have become collateral damage in the conflict between the two camps. Their reputations are constantly under attack and dismissed as “oil shills” on social media by activists who’d rather see fair industry coverage suppressed.

In reality, the oil and gas industry has responded by becoming less accessible, which is not helpful to anyone. Company leaders and analysts stick to scripts and keep media out of events, tours of operations are now rare, most of the communications staff has been fired, and credible sources are hard to find. Information has splintered over many social media platforms, some credible, some not. Meanwhile, media budgets have shrunk and editorial staff cut.

The is a lot more information now, but of low quality.

It’s all left readers begging once again for credible and independent reporting on energy, whether about the safety of pipelines or carbon emissions, as political leaders make important decisions about the sector’s future.

It’s that demand that makes me hopeful about the future of the profession, and the reason I recommend it wholeheartedly to aspiring journalists. And when they ask me whether the sector – or the mainstream media – have a future, I tell them that a job is what you make it. I know I made the most with mine.

Financial Post