Gas Rush: A Reporter’s Perspective

09/17/2012

Tom Wilber, a journalist and author who has covered shale gas prospecting and development throughout Pennsylvania and New York from the beginning, will be speaking September 17 at the University of Pittsburgh.

His presentation, Gas Rush: A Reporter’s Perspective, will begin at 4:30 p.m. at Wesley W. Posvar Hall, room 3911. It includes a brief overview of high volume hydraulic fracturing and related issues, including lessons learned during the rush to develop the Marcellus Shale and Utica shales. With that, he focuses on the rapidly changing current events and social influences that continue to play out -- market dynamics; the anti-fracking movement; Home Rule and other legal challenges; and local, state and national politics influencing regulations.  The talk is hosted by the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.

Wilber has been in the newspaper business for more than 20 years, including 17 years with the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, covering business, health, and environment beats. He has reported on shale gas development in New York and Pennsylvania since 2008; and he was among the first reporters to provide daily coverage of events in Dimock Pennsylvania, which have since become iconic of the national controversy over fracking. For that, he won top honors in Best of Gannett beat reporting in 2010.  He left the newspaper in 2010 to write full time about shale gas development. The resulting book, Under the Surface, Fracking Fortunes and the Fate of the Marcellus Shale, was published this spring by Cornell University Press. He now tracks current events related to shale as development in his blog, Shale Gas Review. Wilber holds a BA in English from the University of Rochester and an MA in journalism from Syracuse University's SI New House School. He has taught various journalism courses as an adjunct at Binghamton University.