Apologies in advance for how long this is...

GoLocal is a whole different beast than any traditional newspaper. Overall, the slant is right-wing (part of why I don't trust any pearl clutching about political donations), but I think the guiding editorial principle has mostly been spite.

For local crime, they repeat (not report, repeat) anything the police FOP feeds them verbatim and uncritically and it's really clear in word choice, phrasing, and the insistence on linking every possible story they can.

For local politicians, figures, and business, there's been countless examples where they (the entire operation is mostly Josh Fenton and his wife, they try to hide this by using anonymous bylines on 99% of their content) have done hatchet jobs on figures that were critical of them.

Some figures, like Raimondo, Elorza, and Cicilline in particular, have been constant targets where coverage is framed in the worst possible light.

When a city councilor questioned a no-bid contract where the city pays them $35k per year to post PDFs for public notices, which is based on antiquated law from the 1930s where governments were required to post things in a newspaper, they went after him pretty relentlessly for years.

Hell, they once did an attack piece about a Facebook joke one of their former writers, who'd moved on acrimoniously and freelanced the occasional ProJo piece. The terrible joke in question was indifference at a Columbus statue being vandalized.

As for the substance of this latest effort? Right off the bat, you have to remember that they give zero fucks about Ron DeSantis or any right-wing contributions. Context clues would probably say that Fenton and his wife are both conservative anyway. I don't think there's any sincerity in any of this and I think the only motivating factor is either an existing advertising relationship with RI Energy or just the general "the right will do literally anything to try and squash green energy options", similar to how you'll see people claim to care about wildlife impact from wind turbines. More to the point, I think there's no such thing as a utility company in 2023 that isn't guilty of some of this same shit, whether it's shitty donations, pushing for deregulation, etc, etc.

There's areas in life where you can be a conscientious consumer, but as a person who needs electricity? It's basically pick your poison from a limited list of bad actors.