The first cross-border package, “The Real Free Speech Threat,” will look at the growing criminalization of protest and the role of polluting industries (particularly oil and gas and agribusiness) in that growth. In a print and audio series that will run through the end of the year, the Drilled Global team, and series’ contributing editor Alleen Brown, who covered this topic extensively for The Intercept for years, will take an in-depth look at how climate protest has evolved in recent years, where this backlash is coming from, how it’s grown so quickly, and what it feels like to be someone who’s concerned enough about the future of humanity to join a protest, only to find themselves facing police violence and several years in jail. The package will include stories from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, France, Guyana, India, Mozambique, Namibia, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Uganda, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Vietnam.

In the last two years, Westervelt's reporting has inspired two Congressional hearings into climate disinformation, been read into the public record on the floor of the U.S. Senate, and was cited as key to preventing a “liability loophole” for the fossil fuel industry from making its way into the U.S. government’s Covid-19 relief package. Most recently, she released the three-part podcast series “Herb,” exploring the other side of the free speech coin: Big Oil’s move to expand legal protections for corporate free speech. Later this fall, the Drilled team will also launch an online archive, Petroganda, highlighting the top five narratives deployed by extractive industries to block climate action, with weekly updates on how these narratives are still being used today. 

Drilled Global is a cross-border climate accountability reporting project. We produce print and audio stories that track trends in climate obstruction, follow fossil fuel companies’ actions in multiple countries, and trace the origins of anti-climate policy trends. The project grew out of the award-winning investigative climate podcast Drilled, and includes reporters on nearly every continent as well as a broad constellation of co-publishing partners. Learn more at drilled.media.

Amy Westervelt is an award-winning investigative journalist and executive producer of the independent podcast production company Critical Frequency, which specializes in reported narrative podcasts. In 2020 she was executive producer of Unfinished: Short Creek, a co-production between Critical Frequency and Stitcher that was named one of the best podcasts of the year by The New Yorker and The Atlantic, and received a Wilbur award for excellence in religion reporting. In 2021, she led the reporting and production teams of This Land S2—an investigative, narrative season revealing the various forces behind efforts to unravel tribal sovereignty in the U.S.—which wasnominated in April 2022 for a Peabody Award. Her investigative climate podcastDrilled, a Critical Frequency original production, was awarded the Online News Association award for excellence in audio journalism in 2019 and Covering Climate Now's award for excellence in audio journalism in 2021. In 2015, Amy received a Rachel Carson award for women greening journalism, for her role in creating a women-only climate journalism group syndicating longform climate reporting to The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Economist, and many more outlets. A 20-year veteran investigative journalist, Westervelt's earlier work for NPR, The Wall Street Journal, Inside Climate News, and various other outlets earned her Edward R. Murrow, ONA, and Folio awards as well, and is amongst the earliest examples of accountability reporting on climate.