They made a 9/11 conspiracy blockbuster. It followed them for decades: Let’s go Off Script

Hey, everyone, I'm Simone Del Rosario. Welcome to Unbiased Updates Off Script, a place where we get to step back from the week's headlines and actually talk through them

Coming up on the podcast 20 years ago, the film Loose Change

Coming up on the podcast 20 years ago, the film Loose Change helped take 9-11 conspiracy theories mainstream online

Now the men who made it say they want nothing to do with the movement it helped create

But they still don't regret making the film. So what did they make of what came after

Our media reporter spoke to them. Plus, data centers are going up across the country

and they need a staggering amount of electricity. The White House says you won't be stuck paying for it

But in some places, customers are already picking up part of the cost

So can your power bill really be protected? I'll ask our energy reporter

And did you know, even if you don't have a plane ticket, you can still get through airport security

why TSA is opening the gates to some non-travelers. Let's start today with what matters

That's what caught our attention this week and why we think it deserves yours. Well, Friday marks 25 years since the devastating terror attacks on 9-11

which many of us watched unfold live on television. You know, I'll never forget eating breakfast

I lived in California at the time and seeing the second plane hit that tower in real time

America was immediately thrown into chaos after this, and the conspiracies soon followed. The U.S. government was behind it, or they knew about it

and didn't stop it. The buildings wouldn't have just collapsed like that from planes

Well, some years later, a documentary gave fuel to those theories, reaching millions. And the

makers of that documentary, Loose Change, have never been able to escape what they created

Straight Arrow's media bias and algorithms reporter Mark Kyer-Lieber spoke to the men

behind the movie for his story, which is called Their Documentary Launched Lingering Conspiracy

Theories About 9-11. It's a monster they can't escape. Mark, thank you for joining us on Offscript

Before we even get into the loose change of it all, I'm really curious, like, how did

how do you find these guys now? How did you find them and how are they doing? What are they doing

Yeah, well, what they're doing is, was a little bit of a surprise to me as well

Loose Change was, for a lot of people, a real gateway into 9-11 conspiracy theories

And a lot of people since then have basically blamed the creators of it for creating the monster that is the internet today where conspiracy theories are rampant

And so I reached out to Dylan Avery. He's one of the lead creators of the film

And they run, you know, he and Corey Rowe, his childhood friend and partner right now run a movie studio, production studio in upstate New York, relatively close to where I live

And I reached out and said, hey, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the legacy of Loose Change

And the initial response from Dylan was actually, no, I'm sorry, we don't trust journalists

I ultimately said, hey, I'm not out to get you. I really want to hear what you guys are up to in 2026

And I got approval. They said, why don't you meet us at our studio on a Friday morning

in upstate New York, kind of the foothills of the Catskill Mountains

Our studio is located in an alley behind a health food store

You can knock on the white door with the security cameras. And so I went there and I'll be honest

it was a little bit sketchier than I had even thought, which going into that conversation, I was like, all right, go down a dark alley

and so I so I do whatever you know uh and I knock on the the the door and Dylan Avery opens it and

right then and there I'm just hit with a wave of the smell of marijuana which surprised me and also

uh that's how I learned rather quickly that that's what they're doing they're not just trying to

rebuild their reputations or create the next, you know, viral video, something that, you know

they would hope would perform better than loose change. But yeah, they are in fact also running

a pot shop. All right. I really liked this quote in your story. We make movies and we sell pot

That pretty much sums it up. And we're glad that you were safe in that dark alley going to

to find these guys to talk to them. Let's look at Loose Change for a second. It came out in 2005

What was it really about? They told me a response that I guess has become kind of a bit of a meme

on the internet broadly speaking the idea that hey we were just asking questions And that their argument here too is Hey you know we not you know some big conspiracy theorists We not saying with any certainty that any of this

is true. We're just asking questions. As a journalist, this is one of the things that

always gets me is when people give massive platforms and say, well, Hey, we're just asking

questions and just kind of not really looking into the information and dissecting what's actually

true versus what's not. In fact, someone you spoke to said that these two filmmakers

you know, it's okay to ask questions, but then they were basically turning up their noses at

legitimate answers to those questions that would disprove their assumptions, essentially. And that kind of seems to be the basis for a lot of conspiracy theories

Right. Yeah. I mean, conspiracy theories, not just about 9-11, but broadly speaking, materialize frequently in the aftermath of a large event that, you know, has really high stakes, but where the conclusions of what caused it are relatively mundane

and when there's a vacuum of information. And those two factors, right

This lack of really clear information about what happened. And then once we find out, hey, here's what's going on

the outcome of it being relatively mundane opens an opportunity for people

to create alternative conclusions about what happened. Corey Rowe and Dylan Avery and others who worked on Loose Change in all of its different forms proved, right

that you could create a film with little more than a laptop and some handheld cameras and some

b-roll and create a viral film that one would make money and two is able to really shift public

conversations about major events. I'm wondering, do they still believe what they put out 20 years

ago? That's such a great question. And it's one that I asked them basically directly. And it's

the one that received perhaps the most pushback from them. They did end up getting into, you know

the fact that, hey, we still don't really know what happened in, you know, 2001, and there still

are all these unanswered questions. And hey, whatever happened with, you know, World Trade

Center Tower 7, which was never actually hit by a plane, but did in fact collapse. You know

that was one of the primary conspiracy theories of the time. And they made pretty clear that

you know questions about you know what happened with that tower linger today they told you they

didn't regret making the film uh so clearly they stand by some of it but the legacy is something

that they have a bit more of a complicated relationship with isn't that right to some

degree they're trying to have it both ways because um this didn't make it into the story

in this exact phrase, in this exact framing, but Dylan did say to me, hey, if we were to do this

all over again, perhaps the big difference that we would make is that we wouldn't put our names on it

And I find that pretty compelling because, like you said, they don't regret making the film

They still stand by the contents of the film. What they regret is the pushback that they've got

for making it and the effects that it's had on their lives

There's so much that we couldn't hit in this conversation, Mark. Luckily, if you're listening, you can read the story on SAN.com or the Straight Arrow app

It's called Their Documentary Launched Lingering Conspiracy Theories About 9-11. It's a monster they can't escape

And I can't even pick out my favorite quote out of this whole piece. So go read it for yourself

Let us know what you think. Mark, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for reading. That's a good question

Then another, General AMC, took issue with our wording, writing, Germany's far right political party? Really

How does a party getting 44 percent of the vote far right? Also, this sounds like an opinion rather than straight arrow news

If you reporting what others are saying you need to say that So the 44 percent doesn really have anything to do with the label That how many people voted for AFD It doesn determine where the party falls politically

AFD is described as far right by major news organizations, including the Associated Press and Reuters

And in Saxony-Anhalt, there's more to it. The local office of Germany's Domestic Intelligence Service

has classified AFD as right-wing extremist. AFD rejects accusations of extremism, though

it says they're politically motivated and an insult to its millions of supporters

So when we called AFD Far Right, that wasn't based on the 44% at once Sunday

and it wasn't a label we created. But I think the second viewer makes a fair point about context

If we're using a label like Far Right, we should make sure you know what it's based on

And in this case, that's where the description comes from. We love hearing from you, so keep those comments coming in

You can leave them on our YouTube page or email us at offscript at san.com

Okay, let's go inside the story now. You can read the headlines on Straight Arrow, but this is where we go a step further. Talk about the details that didn't fit, the questions that came up, and the reporting that shaped the story

This week, data centers are one of the biggest hot-button issues in America. And one reason for that is how it affects what you pay in electricity for these trillion-dollar companies to get more power online

Electricity bills already rose twice as fast as inflation last year. At the same time, we can't stop hearing about new data center projects and community backlash

The Trump administration has this White House ratepayer protection pledge where big tech companies agree to pay their share and not pass costs along to regular ratepayers

But our energy reporter Keaton Peters investigated the issue state by state

And of course, the reality is a lot more complicated. his latest inside the effort to make data centers pay their share of electricity costs

That's on SAN.com and the Straight Arrow app now. And he's here right now with us on Offscript. Hi

Keaton. Hey, Simone. Well, one of the first things that really stuck out to me in your report is that

you found actual line items on utility bills that were tied to new infrastructure projects. So

Pledge or not, people are paying, right? Yes, there are significant ways in which

people are paying costs that we can tie back to infrastructure that serves data centers. It might

serve other customers too, but that's where this idea of there's a lot of gray area comes in

What were you finding state by state when you were doing this huge ysis? Yeah, maybe it helps to just take a step back and talk a little about my process

You know, when I saw the Ratepayer Protection Pledge, and especially a couple months ago when a lot of tech companies and about 56 utility companies signed their name onto that, I thought to myself, well, this is a great idea

It says we're going to all pay for our own power. We're going to pay for system upgrades that are needed

Make sure that folks that are just trying to keep the lights on and run their appliances in their home don't see higher costs because of this

But I thought this is really just five bullet points on an announcement

How is it really implemented? So like every great reporting project, I started with a spreadsheet of all of those 56 or so companies that had utility companies that had signed and started looking up, you know, do they have data centers in their area

What states are they active in? What are the pending regulatory cases that they're involved in

And then I started calling up the folks at the state level that do consumer advocacy

A lot of states have actually mandated by their state legislators a part of a state agency that is supposed to keep an eye on these things and really serve as a watchdog for the utility industry

And when there is a proposal to increase rates, a utility company has to pay for new infrastructure

These are the folks that really get in the weeds of the policy, which can be thousands of pages of documents that are sitting on a public utility commission website

And those are the details that really determine how new costs get allocated

So I started talking to those folks and, you know, spent time hearing about what's going on in, you know, over a dozen states across the country to really get a good sense of what this looks like in reality

Did you find a good example out there for a solution or a setup that actually protects rate payers from shouldering some of this burden

Yeah, this is where it can get complicated, but there is something called a large load tariff

It's not a tariff like we think of in the trade wars right now

What it really is, is you can think of it as a agreement, a legal contract between a

utility company and a data center that kicks in when the new data center that wants to connect to the grid is above a certain size And that includes a few components like they have to make a big down payment

And really the intention, before I go into the details, is the intention is, say a data center comes

and then the utility company's building a bunch of infrastructure to serve that

That's costing a lot of money, and they're going to have to recoup that money somewhere

And the fear is, well, what if this big tech investment is more speculative

What if the project falls apart or just is scaled back? Who's going to pay for that infrastructure that was built to serve it

So that's what these large load tariffs are trying to control for by having the tech companies

make a big down payment. having basically a minimum monthly payment of, let's say, 80% is pretty common. They have to pay

at least 80% of the costs assigned to them for usually 20 years. So they're signed on for that

long term, whether they use the power or not. And there are also fees if they try to exit early

Those are some of the most common ratepayer protections that are in place already in 24 states, about six more states working on them

I did find that of the companies that signed this ratepayer protection pledge, about two thirds of them do have some kind of large load tariff either in place or that's pending approval from a state commission

So that is one of the most common features that especially the industry points to saying, look, we want these tariffs

And there's even a potential that if it's constructed well, it could lower part of a customer's bill

And these large load tariffs can lower a residential customer share of those costs because a bit more of it will be allocated to this really big data centers

But the other part you have to look at is generation costs, which is just how much the actual electricity costs to produce and the larger scale transmission lines that are running hundreds of miles in some cases

And what I heard from some of my interviews is that those are really the places where we've already seen and folks are worried about in the future, the rise of data centers increasing more costs

mm-hmm well the answer starts local and if you want to read Keaton's ysis into all of this

go to san.com or the straight arrow app it's called inside the effort to make data centers

pay their share of electricity costs 100 a topic we're going to continue to follow Keaton thank you

so much for coming on off script not every good story makes it into unbiased updates so here's

one we still think is worth your time did you know you no longer need a plane ticket to get

through security at some U.S. airports. TSA is rolling out Gateside, a new pre-check perk that

lets approved visitors into secure terminals at 13 airports. You still have to be a pre-check member

or another eligible trusted traveler with a known traveler number, but you don't have to be flying

You can go to the gate to see someone off, meet a friend during a layover, or even just grab a meal

or do some shopping, and there's no extra charge. Visitors apply online one to three days ahead of

time, if TSA approves the request, you can go through a pre-check lane with your ID and proof

of your approved gateside status. Access lasts for the entire day. You can leave and come back

The first 13 airports include Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth, Las Vegas, San Diego

Salt Lake City, and Epley Airfield in Omaha. TSA says more airports will be added in the coming

months. And for some of us, this may sound familiar. Before 9-11, friends and family could

commonly follow passengers all the way to the gate. Now a little bit of that airport experience

is coming back. And finally today, here's the kicker. One last story before we call it a day

Scientists have spent more than a decade mapping every neural connection in the brain and central

nervous system of a male fruit fly. More than 166,000 neurons and 125 million connections

all in an effort to better understand how brains actually work. So naturally, the internet made

it play video games. Within days, one software engineer was using the data to train a simulated

fly brain to play Doom. Another has it playing Super Mario 64, although playing may be generous

Mario mostly jumps around and runs into walls. So perhaps not ready for esports just yet

but Google and its research partners are already moving on to bigger brains, including fish and mice, which should keep the internet busy. The internet is undefeated after

all. All right, that's it for us this week. Thanks for listening. If you've made it this far

first thank you, but also let us know what you think. You can email the show team directly

off script at san.com. We'd love to hear from you. For all of us here at Straight Arrow

I'm Simone Del Rosario. We'll see you next time