About this episode

The episode explores the viral phenomenon of Coalie, a cartoon coal character, and its implications for the coal industry's image amidst political agendas.

Three weeks ago, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum shared an unusual tweet : a cartoon image of himself with his arm draped around a giant, anthropomorphized lump of coal. This piece of coal has big googly eyes and a smudge of a nose, and is wearing a safety vest and a hard hat. He is, frankly, adorable—and he has a name: Coalie. When Coalie first appeared on the internet, he went viral—ridiculed on social media, in newsletters, and even on late night talk shows . And that’s because this big-eyed, cute piece of coal was widely understood to be coal propaganda, a tool to soften the coal industry’s image. But the truth about Coalie is more complicated. His origins tell a story about what it’s like for federal employees to try to do their work while navigating the Trump administration’s agenda. Coalie may be widely seen as a mascot for coal mining, but that’s not what he was made for. In this episode, you’ll hear from Simone Randolph, Director of Communications for the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) ; Sara Eckert, formerly of OSMRE; Slate staff writer Nitish Pahwa ; and Leah Stokes , who researches climate and energy policy at the University of…

People in this episode

Hosts: Willa Paskin, Evan Chung, Max Freedman

Guests: Simone Randolph, Sara Eckert, Nitish Pahwa, Leah Stokes

Topics covered

• coal industry
• propaganda
• climate policy
• federal employees
• Trump administration
• mascots

Keywords

• Coalie
• coal propaganda
• Doug Burgum
• climate policy
• Trump administration
• Office of Surface Mining

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, Slate, University of California, Santa Barbara

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