As data centers expand across the country, journalists are being asked to explain a world that involves megawatts, transmission lines, utility bills and billion-dollar infrastructure projects to audiences who may have little reason to understand how the electrical grid works.
Anna Staver, a reporter for the Plain Dealer in Cleveland, said the challenge is not simply learning the technical details, but figuring out how to make the details meaningful. She shared her strategies for covering the rapidly growing data-center industry during “Making Megawatts Make Sense: Explaining Data Centers,” on Oct. 2 at SPJ 2026.
Staver, who specializes in explanatory reporting on complicated subjects including energy, property taxes, budgets and Medicaid, said journalists should not assume that an expert who understands a subject will necessarily be able to explain it clearly.
“Sometimes if you don’t understand the explanation, the problem isn’t you, it’s the expert,” she said.
That can be especially important when covering data centers, where reporters must translate technical concepts into language audiences can understand without stripping away important context.
Staver advises journalists to use analogies to help turn complicated data center information into something digestible readers can picture. Photo by McKenna Manzo.
Staver uses a lot of analogies. She compared electric transmission lines to large, interstate highways and distribution lines to smaller local streets.
Staver encourages giving large numbers a human scale. Writing that a large data center, called hyperscalers, will use 1,000 megawatts does little to help readers understand what that actually means.
In one story, Staver described a proposed 1,000-megawatt data center in rural Adams County, Ohio, as needing nearly 24 times the county’s existing power consumption. She also compared the electricity demand to adding two Clevelands’ worth of demand to a county of about 28,000 people.
The goal, she said, is not merely to describe the size of a project but to help readers visualize how it could affect their community.
“Humans are really bad at understanding large numbers,” Staver said. “When you give people a number like 1,000 megawatts it doesn’t necessarily mean anything to them unless you give them something they can picture.”
Staver also warned journalists against overwhelming audiences with statistics. Too many figures can make readers feel as if they are being tested on information they have not studied, she said. Instead, journalists should ask whether a number is necessary for the audience to understand the story.
That does not mean eliminating numbers. Rather, Staver said reporters should provide the context needed to understand why a number matters.
The same principle applies to technical language. Staver said she aims for roughly an eighth-grade reading level and uses the Hemingway readability checker to identify complicated sentences and jargon.
“Jargon will absolutely shoot the readability score up,” she said.
Staver also encouraged journalists to stop thinking about writing for an abstract “general audience.” Instead, she suggested imagining one specific person while reporting and writing. She often pictures her mother, thinking about what she knows, what she does not know and where she might stop and ask, “Wait, what does that mean?”
That approach, she said, makes writing more conversational and accessible.
But Staver’s advice extended beyond explaining complicated concepts. She encouraged journalists to question the assumptions behind the information they receive from companies, regulators and other experts.
During her reporting, Staver has spoken with data-center developers, technology companies, regulators, utilities and labor unions to better understand what she might be missing.
The phrase “behind the meter,” for example, can be used to describe data centers generating their own electricity. Staver cautioned that behind-the-meter power does not necessarily mean a facility is completely off the electrical grid. In many cases, companies building their own power systems still want to connect to the grid eventually.
That raises additional questions for journalists to ask, she said: Who will eventually own the infrastructure? Who will pay for operating or decommissioning it? And where are companies choosing to locate their power generation?
Staver also said to look beyond company statements when investigating projects that are difficult to trace because of nondisclosure agreements.
Property records, environmental permits, real estate listings, utility filings and other public documents can help reporters piece together what is happening even when companies or local officials cannot disclose the identity of a developer.
For Staver, this kind of explanatory reporting is increasingly important as data centers reshape communities and put new pressure on electrical infrastructure.
The broader lesson of the session was that covering data centers requires more than learning the vocabulary of the industry. Journalists have to translate the numbers, question the assumptions and investigate where the costs and consequences ultimately land.
“You’re trying to become an expert on something in a very short period of time,” Staver said. “You’re trying to understand enough to explain it clearly to someone who may have never thought about it before.”
For reporters facing complicated stories about data centers, the task is not to know every answer before beginning the story: It is to keep asking questions until the answers can be explained clearly to the people who will be affected by them.
Featured photo by McKenna Manzo.