Cultivando crassly gloms onto a family's tragedy, with the help of CPR's Sam Brasch

Cultivando crassly gloms onto a family's tragedy, with the help of CPR's Sam Brasch 

A man died last year in an accident at the Suncor refinery.  He was a contractor up from Texas working the refinery.  A representative for his estate is suing Suncor, United Rentals, and Honeywell for the death.

Why did he die?  What role (if any) did Suncor, United Rentals, and Honeywell play?  

I know what the lawsuit alleges.  It's linked first below if you want to read up on the allegations for each of the three.  Still, that doesn't necessarily get at what happened.   What is the truth here?  I don't know.  

Intuition and common sense tell me that likely this unfortunate man's death is the result of a number of things going wrong.  Not any one of them singly causing it, but all contributing in a way.  Could it also include negligence?  Yes.  That is a possibility.  This is why we have trials and I wouldn't step in on this until after the trial happens.

Cultivando, a group that describes itself on its website (linked second below), as "...a non-profit organization led by Latina and Indigenous women who live in the communities we serve. Founded in 1998, we have over 25 years of experience working with the Latino community, primarily with mothers and youth in Commerce City, Globeville, Elyria-Swansea, and other areas of the state of Colorado." is apparently not as interested in withholding judgment on the issue.  

As a matter of fact, they seemingly took the death, regardless of cause and without any official reckoning, as an opportunity to further their own agenda.  

Cultivando has been trying to shut down and/or otherwise hamper the Suncor refinery for years.  And, after the filing of the lawsuit, they took to the streets to protest Suncor again, this time referencing the accident above.

They weren't alone in this, however, because stalwart ally and environmentalist Sam Brasch, who works at CPR (nominally) as a reporter, was there to amplify their claims and make sure their crass attempt to capitalize on the death of a worker at Suncor would receive airtime on CPR.

His recent article is linked third below.  

In an effort to give you a sense of what I mean, take a look at the screenshot I attached.  I zoomed out from the article to give a picture of its entirety.  

The part highlighted in red is the space Brasch gave over to Cultivando for their advocacy.

The part highlighted in blue is Brasch's quick nod to the possible causes for this death (other than black hearts and sloppy pollution control as yelled at by Cultivando).

The part in green is the quick nod to the man himself, you know, the gentleman whose death, at least in theory, sparked all this.

And lastly, the part that I boxed in black is not only worth a highlight, but a quote here:

"Initial attempts to contact Williams's family [by CPR] were also unsuccessful. The environmental activists behind the event on Tuesday acknowledged they did not speak to any of his relatives before organizing the demonstration."


Once more to drive the point home:


"The environmental activists behind the event on Tuesday acknowledged they did not speak to any of his relatives before organizing the demonstration."



Crass is not a big enough word to describe this, but it is the first one that popped in my brain when I read this article.  Reporting on Suncor's problems and infractions is fine.  Reporting on the lawsuit is fine.  Reporting on the worker's death is fine.

Those are news.  

But giving air to a group of rabid environmentalists who would seemingly stoop to anything in order further their cause of shutting Suncor down, is not.  All of this, of course, made worse by the fact that the protestors didn't really even bother contacting the family first.

This story, was written by Mr. Brasch.  Presumably it went through at least one other set of hands when an editor passed it forward.  Then, someone at CPR put their stamp on it and sent it out into the world under their Banner.

Did no one stop and think through what this piece said?    Did no one look at what Mr. Brasch produced critically?

This is beyond the pale.

Revisit the screenshot of the entire article.  Look at the relative size of the boxes therein.  Look at the size of the text given to Cultivando vs. an exploration of the possible problems causing the man's death.

Look at the size relative to the space given the man himself.  

Now ask yourself, regardless of cause, would you want a news organization to do this with your death?  That of a relative?

https://wp-cpr.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2024/11/11B83DBCFE9DB-1.pdf

https://www.cultivando.org/

https://www.cpr.org/2024/11/21/lawsuit-claims-toxic-gas-killed-suncor-contract-worker/