ISSUE ZERO
AUGUST 7
2026
BUILDING THE CONVERSATION
Report. Listen. Think. Talk.
A weekly newsroom journal from the public radio show Michigan: We Need to Talk
Before we ever open the microphones, we’ve spent time listening to residents in Dowagiac, a small city in southwest Michigan, trying to understand an AI data center’s relationship to the neighborhood where it makes an unrelenting noise.
You really won’t believe how disruptive it is. Or how residents are coping. Or what the data center’s owners say their neighbors should do.
You’ll hear all of it in the first few minutes of Episode 1 of Michigan: We Need to Talk, on Aug. 13 at 8 p.m., on Michigan Public.
And then you’ll call us, or write us, and we’ll discuss this issue from every angle we think up. Are there solutions? How should other communities that have, or are getting, these data centers protect their residents from this kind of imposition? What does the data center controversy say about the politics of economic and technological development in our state? Your voice is centered in our thinking - and on our show.
We’re on our way to creating, and growing, the thoughtful, inquisitive community conversation that Michiganders need and deserve.
