Hill’s charges merit a healthy measure of skepticism. For example, if WCAI is, as she puts it, “very upset” that a local citizen’s group backs the Cape Wind proposal, why did the station recently give air time to Chris Stimpson — a Clean Power Now member — to expound on wind power’s glories?
Nearly every claim and counterclaim in this spat raises similar questions. Start with WCAI’s alleged decision to ignore Williams’s reading: since on-air bookstore promos are, by Jack Moye’s own admission, relatively uncommon, is it really that surprising that the station didn’t plug the event on air? Or consider Brooks’s claim of a “boycott”: what about the fact that WCAI carried Cape Wind co-author Williams’s interview with nationally syndicated talk-show host Diane Rhem?
That said, WCAI’s delay in providing any original coverage of Cape Wind does seem weird. (It has already been reviewed by, among others, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, and even the Cape Cod Times.) The book deals with the biggest issue to hit the Cape in decades. You’d think the station would have found a way to squeeze it into the schedule by now.
Even if no conspiracy against Cape Wind exists, you really can’t blame wind-farm supporters for imagining that one might. As the book itself makes clear — with details that transcend its undeniably strong point of view — the political, economic, and cultural clout of Cape Wind’s opponents is remarkable. No, the anti-wind-farm forces probably haven’t kept WCAI from reporting on Cape Wind. But that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t like to.