In the Southeast, power company money flows to news sites that attack their critics

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Alabama Power and Florida Power & Light hired the consulting firm Matrix to help shape their fortunes. Matrix funded six sites that covered politics, filling a void left by the decline of local news.

The links to Yellowhammer News are more convoluted. In 2014 — the year Terry Dunn lost his bid for reelection — he faced attacks in the online press, including in Yellowhammer News.

Florida has stood out as one of Matrix's biggest successes. The firm represented several of the state's largest corporations, including a major fertilizer and sugar company as well as Florida Power & Light. "I would think The Capitolist would have a field day with this one," Silagy wrote to Pitts on May 4, 2020. The story ran three days later. Silagy had also suggested a cartoon of a prominentreporter, Mary Ellen Klas,"with a tin cup on the street corner." The Capitolist blasted to thousands of its email newsletter subscribers an edited image of Klas in which she holds a sign asking for"Spare change for Fake News — Miami Herald reporter needs help.

"Sachs Media is asking me for coverage on this, but wanted to run it by you first," Burgess wrote to Abigail MacIver, the Matrix employee to whom the site was formally registered."Need guidance on this ASAP."Emails show the Matrix executives ultimately agreed to let Burgess write the story because, as MacIver wrote,"it makes him look like he's not in our pocket and it isn't bad for" Florida Power & Light.

A 2021 invoice shared by Schorsch shows that Florida Power & Light paid the site $43,000 for advertising, enough to cover the cost of a full-time reporter. Schorsch says his reporters do private research for clients too, though he would not specify what that entailed.

 

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