News Sites Took Nearly $1 Million From Consultant Pushing Power Companies' Agenda: Report [View all]

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/12/19/news-sites-took-nearly-1-million-consultant-pushing-power-companies-agenda-report

News Sites Took Nearly $1 Million From Consultant Pushing Power Companies' Agenda: Report

One climate writer said the new exposé, published by NPR and Floodlight, "pulls back the curtain on yet another insidious corporate strategy to erode the core tenets of democracy for profit."

BRETT WILKINS
December 19, 2022

Alabama Power and Florida Power & Light hired a political consulting firm that paid six news websites in the two states nearly a million dollars as they attacked officials seeking to hold the polluting utilities accountable, an investigation revealed Monday.

"Matrix sought to ensure much coverage was secretly driven by the priorities of its clients."

NPR's David Folkenflik, along with Mario Ariza and Miranda Green of Floodlight, found that the power companies hired consulting company Matrix LLC, which, along with clients and associated entities, paid six sites—Yellowhammer News, Alabama Political Reporter, Alabama Today, The Capitolist, Florida Politics, and Sunshine State News—at least $900,000 collectively between 2013 and 2020.

According to the report, "Matrix sought to ensure much coverage was secretly driven by the priorities of its clients. Payments flowed as the utilities in Florida and Alabama fought efforts to incorporate more clean energy in electric grids—a fight they are still waging."

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Meanwhile, Terry Dunn, a Republican elected in 2010 to the Alabama Public Service Commission said that, after winning his race, he was approached by a fossil fuel industry lobbyist who made him a promise. He could keep his roughly $100,000 per year job on the body that controls energy prices for years to come if he "remained a team player." Dunn—who ran on a pledge to compel Alabama Power executives to open their financial books and publicly answer questions—demurred, and soon found himself the target of what appeared to be a concerted smear campaign.

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