An official's stepson launched a data center news site. Now it has to cover his stepfather.

701 Report, a North Dakota data center news site launched this month by Daniel Lamers, sits inside a credibility question the site itself will have to answer. Lamers is the stepson of Patrick Waters, the elected prosecutor in Oliver County who has been advising county commissioners on Applied Digital's data center permits and is now the subject of an August 2026 removal petition at the state attorney general's office.

The proximity is structural, not scandalous. In a follow-up phone call, Waters told Rob Port of the Dickinson Press that Lamers has been his stepson for roughly a decade and that he previously represented Lamers in court on prior criminal charges. The site lists its mailing address as the same Oliver County building that houses Heartland Law Office, Waters' private practice, where Lamers also works in marketing and client intake, per Waters' on-the-record statement. Oliver County is also the jurisdiction where the prosecutor's office is the legal adviser to the permitting body, and where County Commissioner Dave Berger resigned earlier in 2026 citing bullying and harassment from data center opponents.

Whether the family tie disqualifies the outlet is the wrong question. The right one is what 701 Report has actually chosen to publish, and what it has chosen not to, since it started covering the beat. That is the kind of audit a reader can run on any specialist outlet, and the only one that produces evidence.

Its homepage is sparse: an AI-generated illustration and a single lead-article link, with the byline identifying Lamers as "Reporter & Founder, 701 Report." Port, who read the site's archive, characterized the data center reporting as "anodyne to the point of uselessness" rather than overtly pro-industry. The substantive work leans on utility filings and legislative summaries. 701 Report's data center explainer says Applied Digital's Ellendale facility returned more than $24.8 million in savings to North Dakota electric customers from 2023 to 2026 by soaking up stranded wind power, that North Dakota electric customers pay roughly $7.40 a month more in transmission costs tied to a 2023 Williston-area grid-congestion dispute, and that the state exempts data centers of 15,000 square feet or more, built or substantially refurbished after 2020, from sales tax on computer equipment and software.

Those numbers are useful context, but they are also the numbers a developer wants a sympathetic outlet to circulate. They originate with 701 Report itself, and 701 Report's independence is the subject of the piece, so they are attributed color rather than authoritative figures. The same caveat applies to 701 Report's claim that North Dakota is one of at least 14 states that do not disclose how much individual data centers save through tax breaks: the framing is correct, and the underlying policy point is real, but the count is the subject publication's own tally.

Waters' own conduct around the launch is the harder material. In a group email to reporters, he referred to the anonymous tipster who flagged the family tie as a "sub-creature" and wrote: "I have zero control over 701 Report, have no control over what is published, when it is published, nor do I have anything to do with the website." On the phone with Port, he narrowed that further: "I didn't authorize this. This isn't me. I want nothing to do with the 701 Report." He also acknowledged directing a murder-case client to speak with Lamers for a 701 Report piece on the Mandan tragedy, which sits somewhere between a referral and an editorial hand on the wheel. When Port tried to reach Waters by phone, Lamers picked up and verbally abused him; Lamers later called back to apologize, blaming the moment on a case of mistaken identity.

None of that, on its own, settles the credibility question. What settles it is the same checklist a reader can apply to any new beat outlet: a stated proximity disclosure, a corrections log, named funding sources, an ownership line, and a coverage record that engages the most uncomfortable story in its own beat. 701 Report's homepage shows none of those yet, and the first data center explainer reads like the kind of piece a public-affairs shop would file for the developer. The credibility test is what shows up next.