Anyone who follows the energy business has by now heard about the recent 60 Minutes segment “The Cleantech Crash,” that basically said cleantech is dead. Understandably, the blow back from cleantech industry stakeholders has been harsh, loud and swift.

However, while cleantech is certainly not dead and some VC firms even remain bullish, the story did get some things right. Robert Rapier, Editor of the Energy Trends Report, was interviewed for the piece and provided some interesting background and color in a recent post:

“One thing I haven’t stated publicly is that I got a call from 60 Minutes the morning after the story aired. They said that they were getting vilified over the story, and they were afraid given my preliminary comments that I was about to distance myself from the story. I told them that had I seen the finished version before it was aired, I could have warned them they would get serious blow back given the slant of the story. I reminded them that I tried to warn them that cleantech isn’t dead, and that there are simply some parts that aren’t doing so well…”

Rapier goes on to point out:

“Many people have weighed in on the story, primarily pointing out that 60 Minutes got it totally wrong. But many of those criticizing the story are also getting it wrong. They act appalled that 60 Minutes would suggest that things are anything but peachy in the cleantech world.

Of course things are not all peachy.”

Sure, VC firms have lost a lot of money, but that’s largely because they were employing the wrong investment strategies claims Katie Fehrenbacher in her GigaOm story: What 60 Minutes got right and wrong in its story on the “cleantech crash.”

As is often the case – particularly with energy issues – oversimplification can get you in trouble and that appears to be what happened here. Ratings boosts and publicity are nice, but as Rapier says in his post, “I would prefer to have a more defensible story than a story that gets more views, but causes people to challenge the credibility of the reporting.”