- Analyst layer
- The research firms (Synergy Research, Structure Research, TeleGeography, Dell'Oro) and bank equity and credit desks whose market-size figures and forecasts flow into press coverage. Their numbers rest on definitional and methodological choices and on their own business models, making each figure a conditional, sourced claim rather than a fact from the sky.
- Beat
- The specific territory a reporter is responsible for covering. Trade beats can be narrow (power and cooling, financing, hyperscalers); general-outlet beats are broader, which shapes what detail a reporter is equipped to catch or likely to miss.
- Byline
- The named author of a story. Reading at the byline level, checking a reporter's track record for sourcing breadth, attribution habits, and willingness to ask hard questions, lets a reader calibrate trust before a story matters rather than after.
- General business press
- Broad outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, and the wire services that cover data centers episodically when a story crosses a threshold of wider significance. Strong on skepticism, market context, and reach; sometimes weaker on technical precision.
- Narrative
- The interpretive frame wrapped around signal, telling the reader what the facts supposedly mean (the boom is unstoppable; the boom is a bubble). Built from real signal but shaped by selection and emotional charge; should be held provisionally as a hypothesis with an author and an interest.
- Provenance
- The origin and evidentiary chain behind a claim or number: where it came from and what independent source, if any, vouches for it. 'According to the company' is self-description; 'according to permit filings reviewed by reporters' is independent reporting. A figure without provenance is a claim by whoever benefits from it.
- Signal
- The durable, verifiable core of what actually happened: a permit filed, an agreement signed for a stated quantity and term, a facility energized on a date. Signal has traceable provenance, survives cross-checking, and is the sound basis for forming beliefs.
- Trade press
- Publications that exist primarily to cover a single industry, such as Data Center Dynamics, Data Center Knowledge, and Bisnow for data centers. Marked by deep technical fluency and early access, and by the structural warmth that comes from living inside the industry it reports on.