A few months ago, we launched Reality Check. After years of frustration with mainstream media coverage of cleantech, we felt it was time to put in a regular, full-strength, hardcore effort to correct the record and highlight what's wrong with such coverage.

Clean Power

Reality Check — Send Us Weak, Poor, Misguided, Misleading, & Downright Horrible Media Coverage

Zachary Shahan

Published

March 26, 2018

Since then, this feature has included: an in-depth investigative piece tackling poor WSJ coverage of a somewhat obscure but important and effective cleantech program (PACE); quick commentary on uninformed, misleading statements about solar tariffs on MSNBC; thorough rebuttal of an absurd claim in Business Insider that Tesla won’t be able to “keep up” with GM; and an epic 3-part takedown of a horrible, misleading, warped anti-wind story purporting to be an in-depth investigation by GateHouse Media.

We want to do much more to “correct the cleantech record” and push the mainstream media to do a better job covering cleantech issues. As such, we have three simple requests for you:

Drop us recommendations for stories we should respond to.
Share our Reality Check articles with the mainstream media outlets we are responding to (via comments on the articles and also tweets, shares, and emails to the reporters and editors).
Share our Reality Check articles with everyone.

By the way, we also accept financial support via Patreon and PayPal.

I don't like paywalls. You don't like paywalls. Who likes paywalls? Here at CleanTechnica, we implemented a limited paywall for a while, but it always felt wrong — and it was always tough to decide what we should put behind there. In theory, your most exclusive and best content goes behind a paywall. But then fewer people read it! We just don't like paywalls, and so we've decided to ditch ours. Unfortunately, the media business is still a tough, cut-throat business with tiny margins. It's a never-ending Olympic challenge to stay above water or even perhaps — gasp — grow. So ...

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In this article:Reality Check

Written By Zachary Shahan

Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao. Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA], NIO [NIO], Xpeng [XPEV], Ford [F], ChargePoint [CHPT], Amazon [AMZN], Piedmont Lithium [PLL], Lithium Americas [LAC], Albemarle Corporation [ALB], Nouveau Monde Graphite [NMGRF], Talon Metals [TLOFF], Arclight Clean Transition Corp [ACTC], and Starbucks [SBUX]. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort.