National assignment editors, Western PA journo here. I'm pleading w/ you, plz don't assign stories about how we feel about fracking or oil. Not only do most laypeople here rarely talk about it, they're like most Americans, more concerned about COVID, economic relief, schools, etc

Fracking brought up a lot by regional political, biz & labor leaders, bc industry did an effective job of convincing them (and only them) that fracking was an economic panacea. (it wasn't) But that's disconnected from laypeople who are growing more wary of it in their backyards

And don't for 1 second think oil has any cache here. PA's oil boom ended 100+ years ago. Most SW Pennsylvanians don't even know about region's oil history. It's like pretending Biden is going to lose CA because he doesn't support gold mining. Look at how little oil PA produces

If you come here to report, the only people you will find to talk about these issues are industry boosters, partisan Republicans, etc. It's not a salient issue, we don't need to pretend like it is because candidates talked a little about it during debate.

This is as good as time as ever to announce I am going on vacation starting Saturday (driving around our beautiful state). If I see a national reporter trying to convince Pennsylvanians to feed into a clear attempt to make oil, fracking a wedge issue, i will yell at them