On this edition of Your Call's One Planet Series, we're discuss a ProPublica, Tow Center for Digital Journalism, and Floodlight investigation out how fossil fuel interests are working to kill a solar project in Knox county, Ohio.
The investigation found that oil and gas companies intervened in local politics, and used media outlets and a dark-money group to spread misinformation and influence public opinion.
Floodlight and its partners have reported that across the country, the oil and gas industry and power companies have exploited a struggling news industry and a fraught political process to fight the transition to clean energy and maximize profits. In Florida, two power companies paid a consulting firm to hire newspapers to attack a pro-solar politician. In Alabama, the state’s largest monopoly electric company purchased a historic Black newspaper, then didn’t write about soaring power bills. In California, Chevron launched its own newsroom when other papers shuttered; it doesn’t cover itself critically.
Guests:
Miranda Green, investigative journalist and director of investigations at Floodlight News
Jennifer Smith Richards, reporter for ProPublica
Resources:
ProPublica: Fossil Fuel Interests Are Working to Kill Solar in One Ohio County. The Hometown Newspaper Is Helping.
E&E News: Meet the Christian oil mogul spending big to elect Trump
ND News Cooperative: Weird' newspaper calls out pipeline protests eight years later
