Previously on Drill.

These avatorials, which it became clear were part of a very comprehensive, external global

climate change communication plan whereby they took out avatorials every Thursday between

1972 and, you know, the 2000s.

We started digging into oil companies' comprehensive media influence strategies in the last episode,

and we'll continue following those strategies today.

We know that they attempted to influence reporters and editors through accusations of bias, that

they paid scientists to promote theories their own scientists had proven false, and that

they created the op-add, which effectively shifted coverage of climate change.

In the same way that oil company publicists were able to weaponize journalist insecurities

about bias against them, they were also able to exploit certain vulnerabilities in science

communication and science journalism.

This isn't what we're good at necessarily.

Like, if you look at the characteristics of what makes the gay scientist, it's actually

often diametrically opposed to what makes the gay community better.

That's climate scientist Catherine Hayho, a long-time leader in her field.

She is a good communicator, and she says between that and her gender, she said to work twice

as hard to earn credibility as a scientist.

This is something I heard over and over again from scientists, that the general sense is,

if you're good at communicating, you're either not good at science, or you're not focused

on it.

Former Exxon scientist Moral Cohen said this too.

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