Fox host Jesse Watters and climate contrarian Michael Shellenberger attempted to delegitimize the trusted news wire service AP News, seemingly in response to a recent story from the outlet countering disinformation that Fox regularly pushes about offshore wind projects.

On the January 2 edition of Jesse Watters Primetime, Watters claimed that “liberal money is literally getting global warming stories planted on the front page of America's papers.” AP News has received grants from various foundations with a broad array of focuses and philanthropic leanings, which AP has used to hire more journalists and produce better climate change coverage. 

But the expansion, during which the news agency hired about 20 climate journalists, was announced in February 2022. Though Watters and Shellenberger targeted the news service’s climate coverage as a whole, they also zeroed in on one December story titled “Contrary to politicians’ claims, offshore wind farms don’t kill whales. Here’s what to know.” 

During the segment, Shellenberger, who authors a right-wing Substack called Public, refuted the article by repeating myths about offshore wind turbines killing whales, despite a lack of evidence to support those claims.

Shellenberger alleged AP News is accepting “millions of dollars … to basically do propaganda” on behalf of foundations that have “direct investments in things like those whale-killing wind farms,” presumably because the climate reporting grant came in part from foundations that also support renewable energy development. Shellenberger also called the article “disinformation,” even though the information it presents has been widely confirmed by experts who work with marine mammals and reiterated by several fact checks from a variety of sources. 

Despite having produced a documentary attempting to vilify offshore wind projects in 2023, Shellenberger has failed to offer concrete evidence that this development is responsible for the unusual mortality event that is affecting whales on the Atlantic coast. Scientists say that while it’s nearly impossible to link the event to a single cause, fishing gear entanglement, vessel collisions, and the changing migration patterns of whale prey due to warming waters could all be contributing to an increase in whale deaths.

Far from indicating a genuine concern about biased reporting, the segment advanced a longstanding and concerted campaign led by Fox News to spread panic about offshore wind energy and hinder the transition away from fossil fuels.  

Throughout 2023, Watters helped spearhead the right’s dubious obsession with whale conservation through his early coverage of wind projects in New York and New Jersey. 

In reality, the story Shellenberger and Watters are attacking is far from “propaganda.” Not only does it quote both scientists and think tanks that are opposed to offshore wind development, but it also fails to mention that these think tanks have deep ties to the fossil fuel industry, as do smaller activist groups involved in the supposed whale conservation effort in the Mid-Atlantic region. When it comes to climate change, Fox won’t settle for anything less than science denial.