Under the headline, "For GOP, Pipeline Is Central to Agenda," Steinhauer explains:

Republicans are framing Keystone as an urgent jobs and energy project at a time of high unemployment and creeping gasoline prices, and trying to portray Mr. Obama as giving in to hard-left environmentalists in an election year at the expense of addressing both.

Instead of challenging that narrative, the Times bolstered it, alluding to what Republican presidential candidates are saying about Keystone and quoting from Keystone-supporting Democrats.

"This week, Democrats moved to blunt the Keystone attacks," the Times went on--which merely set up more quotes from potentially Keystone-friendly Democrats like Senator Harry Reid, who wants the project to keep the oil in the U.S.

The Times then went back to Republican PR:

For Republicans, the pipeline is a political trifecta. It unites most of their party and divides the Democrats. It is also fairly easy to explain to voters, and it hits on the key concerns of many Americans: jobs, energy independence and fear of economic competition with China, which Republicans have said will be the recipient of the Canadian oil without the Keystone plan.

You can challenge that "trifecta," but the Times mostly passed on that option. The only hint of skepticism comes late in the article:

The number of jobs that could be created by the Keystone expansion--supporters say 20,000--is disputed. But many companies and labor unions around the country were counting on the expansion and had already made materials or hired workers to gear up.

The numbers are disputed. How so?

As we've talked about before, this is arguably the key issue here. An outside estimate from Cornell says 2,500-4,000 jobs. The State Department says 5 or 6 thousand.

It's not difficult to cite these numbers, or to ask Keystone proponents to explain where they're getting their much higher estimates (hint: from the company). This is especially important in a piece about how this issue will be an important part of the Republican presidential campaign strategy.

The Times notes near the end:

A wild card is whether workers invested in the project will serve as an echo chamber for the Republicans' criticism.

Today the  New York Times certainly served that function.

The hulking system that once guided Japan's pro-nuclear-power stance worked just fine when everybody moved in lockstep. But in the wake of a nuclear accident that changed the way this country thinks about energy, the system has proved ill-suited for resolving conflict. Its very size and complexity have become a problem.

And what exactly is that problem?

Nearly a year after the triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi facility, Japanese decision-makers cannot agree on how to safeguard their reactors against future disasters, or even whether to operate them at all.

Some experts say this indecision reflects the Japanese tendency to search for, and sometimes depend on, consensus--even when none is likely to emerge. The nation’s system for nuclear decision-making requires the agreement of thousands of officials. Most bureaucrats and politicians in Tokyo want Japan to recommit to nuclear power, but they have been thwarted by a powerful minority--reformists and regional governors.

The obstruction by this "powerful minority," the Post goes on to say, has "heavy consequences": "record financial losses for major power companies and economy-stunting electricity shortages." The story warns that "Japan, once the world’s third-largest nuclear consumer, could be nuclear-free, if it is unable to win approval from local communities to restart the idled units."

Then, after musing about the "elaborate network of hand-holding" that used to govern Japan's nuclear infrastructure, Harlan slips in a fact that changes everything:

Since the March 11 accident, just enough has changed to stall that cooperation. Two-thirds of Japanese oppose atomic power. Politicians in areas that host nuclear plants are rethinking the facilities; they hold veto power over any restart. A few vocal skeptics have emerged in the government, and in the aftermath of the accident, Japan has created at least a dozen commissions and task forces for energy-related issues.

So when the pro-nuclear goals of "most bureaucrats and politicians" are "thwarted by a powerful minority," that's a sign of the dysfunctional Japanese system, with its "tendency to search for, and sometimes depend on, consensus." The fact that this "minority" actually represents the large majority of the Japanese public who oppose the technology that has rendered substantial parts of their country uninhabitable--well, that's just another roadblock that the establishment is going to have to overcome.

Take USA Today (please!). Yesterday the paper reported on the very contentious matter of the Keystone XL pipeline and jobs--a favorite issue for Republicans. The paper (1/24/12) told readers:

Obama hasn't been willing to ignore politics, says Bruce Josten, an executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He cites several instances--from the failure to reach a deficit-reduction deal with Republicans last year to the rejection Tuesday of a jobs-producing oil pipeline--as examples of Obama's refusal to compromise.

Calling something "jobs-producing" suggests that this would be a major component of the policy in question.

Today the paper gets a little more specific in its report (1/25/12) on the State of the Union response from Republican Indiana governor Mitch Daniels:

He derided what he called "the extremism that stifles the development of homegrown energy, or cancels a perfectly safe pipeline that would employ tens of thousands."

That was a reference to Obama's decision against allowing the Keystone XL oil pipeline to be built from Canada to the Gulf Coast.

No, it's a reference to a myth Republicans and the oil industry are spreading about the jobs that would result from constructing the Keystone pipeline.

Last week USA Today counted 20,000 such jobs in a headline. I suppose the fact that some politicians like to claim that the pipeline would create hundreds of thousands of jobs makes the 20,000 number seem like a safe middle ground.

But that number is nonetheless dubious. Curtis Brainard has a pretty thorough rundown at CJR.org (1/24/12), explaining that the 20,000 figure comes from one estimate provided by TransCanada. Outside evaluations of the likely job numbers look different; the State Department's estimate is 5,000-6,000, and as Brainard explains:

In September, researchers at Cornell University's Global Labor Institute used the information in the EIS to come up with an estimate that was even more modest. Factoring in the various durations of employment, it calculated that "on-site construction and inspection creates only 5,060-9,250 person-years of employment (1 person-year = 1 person working full time for 1 year). This is equivalent to 2,500-4,650 jobs per year over two years."

The Republican Party wants the Keystone story to be about jobs, jobs and jobs. This is much easier to do when media outlets will print whatever they say without questioning it.

The paper adds that "Obama was putting politics ahead of jobs and the nation's energy security by rejecting the pipeline now, Republicans and oil industry leaders said." It closes with this:

Business leaders and Republicans say approving the project now would create as many as 20,000 jobs for an ailing U.S. economy and lessen dependence on foreign oil.

"This political decision offers hard evidence that creating jobs is not a high priority for this administration," said Tom Donohue, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

If the argument in favor of this pipeline is that it creates jobs, then reporters should look into the claims about job creation. USA Today doesn't do that, but others have. A piece by CBS reporter Alain Sherter (1/18/12) explained that the 20,000 figure, while lower than some estimates, still has some problems:

But subsequent analysis suggests that Keystone's job-creating potential is more modest. The U.S. State Department calculated last year that the underground pipeline would add 5,000 to 6,000 U.S. jobs. One independent review of Keystone puts that number even lower, with the Cornell University Global Labor Institute finding that the pipeline would add only 500 to 1,400 temporary construction jobs. The authors of the September report also said that much of the new employment stemming from Keystone would be outside the U.S.

Transcanada itself cast doubt on its employment forecast when a vice president for the company told CNN last fall that the 20,000 jobs Keystone would create were temporary and that the project would likely yield only "hundreds" of permanent positions.

Another reason for the discrepancy appears to stem from what that 20,000 figure really means. As Transcanada has conceded, its estimate counted up "job years" spent on the project, not jobs. In other words, the company was counting a single construction worker who worked for two years on Keystone as two jobs, lending fuel to critics who said advocates of the pipeline were overstating its benefits.

The inflated claims will continue to fly, though--especially when reporters don't push back.