The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have run at least 155 ads on branded podcasts since September by the U.S. oil industry’s biggest lobby group, a DeSmog analysis has found.
The newspapers’ ads push for weakened laws around fossil fuel infrastructure permits and are part of the American Petroleum Institute’s (API) “When America Builds, America Wins” campaign. The ads call for the government to “overhaul our broken permitting process” because “America’s natural gas and oil keeps the country moving,” mirroring President Donald Trump’s drive to deregulate environmental laws and increase fossil fuel production.
The campaign included 85 ads in New York Times podcasts over the past nine months, according to data analyzed by DeSmog from market research platform Critical Mention. Nearly three quarters of these ads appeared in “The Daily,” the third most-listened-to podcast in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2026, the analysis found.
A further 70 ads appeared on The Wall Street Journal podcast, “WSJ Opinion: Potomac Watch.”
The ads, which most recently ran with one of the two outlets on May 21, lead to an API web page where visitors are encouraged to use a template to write a letter to their local politicians saying they want to see permitting reform.
