Mining Must Rely On Media To Improve Image Advertising Must Be Used To Counter News Accounts Unfavorable To Mining Interests, Official Says

If the mining business wants to heal its image, it must use the same media that is responsible for giving the industry a black eye, said The Gold Institute’s president Wednesday.

John Lutley, of the Washington, D.C.-based institute, told mining executives and geologists at the Northwest Mining Association Convention in Spokane that mining’s image continues to suffer.

The only issues that receive more negative media attention than mining last year were tobacco and firearms, according to The Gold Institute study. Of all the mining coverage surveyed, more than three-fourths was perceived as negative. Nine of 10 gold mining stories were negative, according to the study.

How come? The study said journalists got nearly half the stories from environment groups, and only 5 percent from industry sources.

“The media is a tough nut for us,” said Lutley, whose institute rounded up $3.5 million from gold companies to respond to criticism. The campaign, begun last year, used television and newspaper ads in California, Idaho, Nevada and the nation’s capital to demonstrate gold’s usefulness to society.

Of the 11 million gold ounces produced in the United States, 60 percent goes to uses other than jewelry, Lutley said. Environmentalists criticize the excavation of huge pits for the sake of earrings and bracelets, but many modern electronics we use each day could not run without gold, he said.

The fledgling campaign appeared to work. People who had seen the ads said their impressions of mining improved, Lutley said.

Lutley called on Inland Northwest mining firms to chip in cash to run the same ads in Spokane. “Spokane is very important to us, and we’d very much like to include you in this as well.”

The association has once again tried to create a resource users roundtable to discuss issues. Such a group would encompass timber, mining and even recreational groups who use public lands. Tim Olson, outgoing executive director of the association, knows it will be a tall order to keep those diverse groups talking.

“We’ve tried it for two years,” he said. “We’ve even asked the EPA to come talk with us, but they won’t. It’s very difficult, but we’ve got to keep trying to move it forward.”

Yet another documentary program hammering the mining industry for the way it acquires public lands through the 1872 Mining Law had many delegates muttering this week. The program called “Topx” aired several times on cable station TBS and is critical of the low fees mining companies pay for the right to mine.

“I’ve never seen a public television program that has been balanced on the subject,” Lutley said. Few understand that the cost of getting permits for a mine, coupled with the millions needed to actually extract metals from the ground, can make mining a losing proposition.

Coeur d’Alene’s Hecla Mining Co. spent years obtaining permits for its Grouse Creek mine only to find out it didn’t have as much gold as the company’s geologists thought. The mine cost the company well over $120 million in losses.

Convention Notes:

Representatives from more than a dozen countries outlined mining opportunities in their respective homelands Wednesday. As domestic mining becomes more difficult, companies look to international havens where mining is welcomed.

Moises Chingongo, deputy minister of Angola’s Ministry of Geology and Mines, said his country needs technical help from North American companies to explore its diamond mines. Representatives from Sweden, Russia and even Greenland made presentations to executives.

, DataTimes