The contrast between the much-hailed promise of the natural gas boom and the painful and disappointing reality we see today raises one compelling question -- Why?

Respected leaders in academia, journalism, and government continue to claim that there's an "economic boom" taking place in the northern panhandle, apparently unaware of the underlying statistics or the easily observed facts on the ground. That's why we who have signed this petition ask you to direct the Intelligencer and News-Register, the panhandle's leading daily newspapers, to do a series of reports that not only focus on the ongoing and unexpected decline in jobs, but that also explores the reasons why the massive investment in natural gas production has failed and continues to fail to translate into prosperity and jobs for the people of the upper Ohio Valley.