Repeat After Media: Data Centers Are Wonderful and Good
Even media that aren’t insisting that Chinese mind control is the reason for data center opposition are attacking citizens for their ecological concerns.
‘It’s an Environmental Issue, It’s an Anti-War Issue, They’re All Connected Here’:
CounterSpin interview with Melissa Garriga on data centers
“It’s not just local ecosystems that these data centers are affecting, but it’s also driving death and destruction across the globe.”
Melissa Garriga on Data Centers
Data centers are very much brick and mortar—despite press coverage that suggests that artificial intelligence all happens in the ether somewhere.
‘Is It Worth Running a Race Where the Prize Is Some Dystopian Future?’:
CounterSpin interview with Mitch Jones on AI vs. environment
“All of the changes that happen economically that are going to harm the most of us and enrich a few of the others are sold to us as inevitable.”
WaPo Defends Data Centers—With Few Disclosures That Amazon Depends on Them
The data center controversy was downplayed by the Washington Post—owned by the founder of Amazon, a company at the forefront of the data center buildout,
Jai Dulani and Vivek Bharathan on Data Center Opposition, Keith McHenry (2024) on Homeless Policy
Something so vaguely named as a “data center” is actually a physical thing in real neighborhoods affecting real people.
‘This Budget Would Give Polluters the Green Light’:
CounterSpin interview with Ashley Nunes on public land selloff
“This budget proposal is one of the worst attacks on the environment that we have seen in our lifetime.”
Jumping to Blame Renewables for Iberian Outage
Numerous media outlets rushed to blame the Iberian blackout on Spain’s push for more renewable energy sources.
DC Station Rewrites Gas Exposé After a Word From Its Sponsor
An editor’s note said: “This story…has been updated to include additional research.” A more honest note might have read: “We changed this story to keep a sponsor happy.”
When Lights Go Out in Cuba, Media Blame Communism—Not US Sanctions
Reporting on Cuba’s blackouts have either omitted or paid brief lip-service to the effects of US sanctions on the Cuban economy.
Shelby Green & Selah Goodson Bell on Utility Profiteering, Jane McAlevey on #MeToo & Labor
At some point, we will get tired of hearing news reports on “record heat”—because “heat” will have stopped meaning what it once may have meant.
‘The UN’s Report Laid Bare How Little Time Was Left’
“This is a huge opportunity…to create an energy system that’s rooted in climate justice, that’s rooted in the realities of the changing climate,”
‘It Felt Like a Wasted Opportunity to Hold Oil Executives to Account’
“The fossil fuel industry has a long history of investing in the media in order to manipulate the conversation.”
Emily Sanders on How Not to Interview an Oil CEO, Kaufman & Bozuwa on Fighting Climate Disrupters
There is no way to fight climate disruption without fighting climate disrupters.
Anonymous Sources Are Newsworthy—When They Talk to NYT, Not Seymour Hersh
The response of the nation’s major news organizations to two stories about the Nord Stream sabotage couldn’t have been more different.
Major US Outlets Found Hersh’s Nord Stream Scoop Too Hot to Handle
By every journalistic standard, the extensive international coverage given to Hersh’s story should have made it big news in the US.
‘Everyone Has a Right to Electricity and Heat’
“If just 12 utilities took 1% of their dividends that they paid out to shareholders…that could have prevented disconnections.”
Oil Lobby Prompts Right-Wing Media to Save Whales—From Wind Power
Media complicity in using feigned concern for dead whales to shield fossil fuel interests undermines genuine environmental activism.
Shelby Green and Selah Goodson Bell on Utility Shutoffs & Profiteering
Electric utilities have disconnected US households more than 4 million times since the beginning of Covid, preceding the Ukraine War.
US Media’s Intellectual No-Fly-Zone on US Culpability in Nord Stream Attack
Commentators almost universally fingering Russia as the culprit in the pipeline sabotage, despite the lack of a plausible motive.
