A little over one year ago, I reported that a report alleged that the Associated Press took millions of dollars in donations and used it to fund its “climate crisis” coverage.
The Associated Press took $8 million in donations to fund climate coverage in 2022, with the news cooperative and several other major media publications engaged in dubious claims about climate change, according to a new, exclusive year-end report.The “Climate Fact Check 2022” report, presented by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), the Heartland Institute, the Energy & Environmental Legal Institute, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), and the International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC), stated that “climate alarmists” and members of the media engaged in claims about the relationship between manmade emissions and natural disasters, claims that clashed with “reality and science.”In February, the Associated Press admitted that they would assign more than 24 journalists across the globe to cover “climate issues” after receiving more than $8 million over three years from various organizations.
Now, an analysis of funding initiatives led by some of America’s biggest private foundations indicates that progressive activist entities are funding this training for “climate journalists” at Columbia University, Harvard University, and the University of Southern California.
RealClearPolitics has published an in-depth analysis, which shows an astonishing and near-perfect adherence to the climate narratives.
The organization Covering Climate Now is a major driver of climate-related news, reportedly encompassing “More than 500 news and media outlets [that] partner with the organization, which represents an audience of 2 billion people in 57 countries. Its partners include big names like ABC News, CBS News, Reuters, The Boston Globe, The Miami Herald, and The San Francisco Chronicle.”NBC News and Bloomberg are also partners, and just recently, Portland’s KGW News was added as a partner.Covering Climate Now was founded by the Columbia Journalism Review – an initiative of Ivy League Columbia University’s journalism school – in partnership with the far-left publication The Nation. Who funds it? Actions@EBMF, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Michaux Family Foundation, One Earth Fund, Park Foundation, Rockefeller Family & Associates, Rockefeller Family Fund, Schumann Media Center, Taylor Family Charitable Fund, and Wayne Crookes. Notably, Rockefeller money was also behind the AP climate journalism initiative.Since Covering Climate Now and Columbia’s initiative was put in place, ABC, CBS, and Reuters have run a flurry of climate change-focused stories that seem designed to draw in non-climate hawks and amplify their concern about the issue by focusing on subjects of interest to extremely “average” news consumers, such as food, children’s mental health … even Christmas trees….Covering Climate Now has also touted partner pieces arguing that “massive programmes of green public investment would be the most cost-effective way both to revive virus-hit economies and strike a decisive blow against climate change,” talking up fracking’s alleged endangering of seniors sheltering in place during COVID, and Americans’ purported responsibility for Amazon rainforest deforestation – featuring Leonardo DiCaprio (because why not).
And while lavish funding by climate moralists may seem daunting, there is a reason for good hope. As I have already noted, the tides have shifted against Climate Crisis/Global Warming hysteria. I believe it will join all the other apocalypse agents sooner rather than later.
This trend aligns with another: Massive layoffs in the media. When your analysis is bought and paid for by another entity, your credibility comes into question, and people stop going to you for information.
The likely outcome, an “extinction level event”, is a worry for The New Yorker (hardly a bastion of conservative thinking.)
A report that tracked layoffs in the industry in 2023 recorded twenty-six hundred and eighty-one in broadcast, print, and digital news media. NBC News, Vox Media, Vice News, Business Insider, Spotify, theSkimm, FiveThirtyEight, The Athletic, and Condé Nast—the publisher of The New Yorker—all made significant layoffs. BuzzFeed News closed, as did Gawker.The Washington Post, which lost about a hundred million dollars last year, offered buyouts to two hundred and forty employees. In just the first month of 2024, Condé Nast laid off a significant number of Pitchfork’s staff and folded the outlet into GQ; the Los Angeles Times laid off at least a hundred and fifteen workers (their union called it “the big one”); Time cut fifteen per cent of its union-represented editorial staff; the Wall Street Journal slashed positions at its D.C. bureau; and Sports Illustrated, which had been weathering a scandal for publishing A.I.-generated stories, laid off much of its staff as well.One journalist recently cancelled a networking phone call with me, writing, “I’ve decided to officially take my career in a different direction.” There wasn’t much I could say to counter that conclusion; it was perfectly logical.
Trust in the press has reached a low not seen since 2016. As more information, such as the funding by agenda-driven groups, leaks out….expect the trust level to hit Mariana Trench depths by the end of 2024.
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