If you’re a “journalist,” time is running out so you better act now!
Later in September, the Columbia Journalism School is hosting a critical event on climate news coverage. For those in the know, the Columbia Journalism School is one of the institutions leftist journalists strive to impress. It’s like a gated country club for the liberal elite who are hosting a big party for reporters to learn how to write on climate.
They call it a “blueprint for media transformation,” but let’s call it what it really is: reporter re-education camp. They already control the news you see, or don’t see, and now they are working to teach reporters so that they can ensure their climate narrative is the only narrative.
The invite reads, “Join leading journalists from around the world for an unprecedented conversation about how to cover a world on fire.” Nothing says dispassionate objectivity like the phrase “world on fire.”
Sadly, it gets worse. Participants are promised opportunities such as “Discuss whether news outlets should still take fossil fuel advertising and how journalists can grapple with climate disinformation” and “get a front row seat to interviews with special guests and global climate luminaries.”
Side note: How does one get the title of climate “luminary?” Does HR hand those out? I digress.
This conference will not simply host the most leftist news organizations in the world, but attendees include media outlets with a massive reach and tremendous global influence, such as the Associated Press.
For decades, the AP has been the gold-standard of media reporting. News outlets across the planet can syndicate, or re-print, an AP story so that it doesn’t appear just once but hundreds or thousands of times nearly everywhere. The presence of the AP at journalist re-education camp is seriously troubling, but unfortunately not surprising.
In Feb. 2022, AP announced it received an $8 million grant to cover climate issues. It planned to use the money to hire more reporters across the world in an arrangement it deemed as “philanthropic.” If you are concerned that an influential news organization receiving millions in donations to cover climate will compromise their integrity, don’t worry because AP said it would accept “money to cover certain areas but without strings attached; the funders have no influence on the stories that are done.” However, there are serious concerns.
The AP acknowledged in the very next line that their funders certainly have an agenda. The “funders weren’t just being generous; they had their own goals to achieve.” The money helped morale in the newsroom in a “mutually beneficial arrangement.” By mutually beneficial, it is difficult to read that as anything other than that the funders get their headlines and AP gets the money, because there is no way it benefits the people.
One study has found that since receiving the climate money, AP has heavily shifted their reporting and produced 64 stories about global calamity due to climate change. The content of the AP stories also included 500 climate extreme buzzwords in their stories. This is all in just the first year of the grant. That translates to more than five climate-funded stories a month that are then re-printed thousands of times across the world.
The ethical conundrum gets even trickier when considering who is bank-rolling the climate news grants, but the names won’t surprise anyone. The NY Post reported “the five climate partners include left-wing groups such as the Rockefeller Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation and Quadrivium. Walton and Quadrivium both fund the radical, eco-leftist Environmental Defense Fund.” And according to the Washington Free Beacon, “The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation spent $2.5 million on the AP’s climate and education reporting verticals and sent $400,000 to its democracy journalism initiative. The foundation also funds Planned Parenthood and organizations such as Advocates for Youth, which promotes transgender ideology to kindergartners.”
National media outlets not playing fair is as newsworthy as the sky (still) being blue. However, the growing insidious relationship between leftist non-profits, their money and the news is becoming more abhorrent and worrisome by the day.
Earlier this year, the AP ran a story on a poll showing their trust declining among Americans. They called the low-level trust in media a “startling point.” It’s mind-boggling to watch as a leading news organization can’t or won’t connect the dots.
Money for eco-alarmism: The climate is most certainly changing, except it has nothing to do with the weather.
Larry Behrens is the Communications Director for Power The Future and is the author of the new book, “Sabotage: How Joe Biden Surrendered American Energy Independence.” He’s also appeared on Fox News, Newsmax and One America News. You can find him on Twitter at @larrybehrens or email at larry@powerthefuture.com.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.