By Isle of Wight Observer
Dear Editor,
As a (current) neutral – requiring further information as to the practicalities of the enterprise, as well as the present and future assessments of the social impact upon the communities and their infrastructure, impacted by such a development – I do feel moved to say that your on-line article ’15 Questions to ExxonMobile’ inviting readers to respond with their views as to being in favour or against the concept, failed in one crucial element.
The company’s (necessarily brief) responses to some of the questions posed, understandably referenced other (presumably more detailed and complex) planning documents which they have had prepared in support of their application, yet readers were invited to submit a vote without being able to directly access these.
True, this is just a ‘vox pop’, but one that will almost certainly be referenced by supporters and opponents of the proposed enterprise, and any route chosen, dependent upon the outcome in due course.
To paraphrase Mark Twain, “lies, damned lies and statistics”, based on incomplete evidence are, at best, potentially misleading, if not outright falsehoods. In asking for opinions though, you the press (and we, the public) have a duty to equip ourselves as fully as possible with all the facts before arriving at a conclusion, and hence it is disappointing that you failed to at least indicate how and when these additional documents could be accessed, or include electronic links to them before asking your readers for an opinion.
A Gatehouse, East Cowes
Ed’s note: We approached ExxonMobil with 15 written questions and told them that we would publish them – with the answers – online in full. If ExxonMobil had wanted to put in links to any other document(s) or give additional context to any answers they could have done so – and we would have published them. The only link they added was to their consultation website, which we included. The answers to the questions asked are not on the website.
We have no way of finding out what the company’s plans are other than asking them about them!