“What stood out to me was this: the tobacco industry doesn’t even have to speak in the room to be heard. Its arguments were echoed, almost word-for-word, by the governments that are supposed to be protecting public health.”

Fact-checking is journalism. It is the straightforward work of comparing public claims against the best available evidence and publishing the results for all to see. This work strengthens public debate — it does not censor it. It is protected within the United States by the First Amendment, and the U.S. has long supported similar press freedoms internationally. To conflate this work with censorship is to misunderstand what fact-checkers do, or to deliberately misrepresent it.

Initial project documents reveal that 25 wind turbines are situated in the mountainous timberland which is outside the protected area, while 13 will stand in the strict protection zone, where infrastructure is heavily restricted.