Associated Press climate change coverage funded by leftists

The Associated Press announced last week it was hiring “more than two dozen journalists across the world” to cover climate issues thanks to an $8 million dollar grant – a move criticized as a breach of journalism ethics.

The AP defended the organization’s single largest expansion paid for through grants as a result of hard times for the journalism industry.

“The announcement illustrates how philanthropy has swiftly become an important new funding source for journalism — at the AP and elsewhere — at a time when the industry’s financial outlook has been otherwise bleak,” wrote David Bauder, the announcement’s author.

The grant is for over $8 million over three years, which with the 24 promised journalists, breaks down to an annual salary of $111,111 per reporter.

But critics have pointed out potential conflicts of interest as the groups behind the grant are far from unbiased.

“The five climate partners include left-wing groups such as the Rockefeller Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation and Quadrivium,” Free Speech America Vice President Dan Gainor wrote in the New York Post. “Walton and Quadrivium both fund the radical, eco-leftist Environmental Defense Fund. The pressure group pushes everything from massive pollution regulations to Biden’s Build Back Better plan, which it calls ‘a long-overdue step to address environmental injustice.’”

Gainor also points to the AP and Society of Professional Journalists’ codes of ethics, both of which state that conflicts of interest should be avoided.  

The AP said that 50 of its journalists were hired and funded through grants, which is part of an industry-wide trend.

“For many years, Journalists and philanthropists were more wary of each other,” Bauder wrote. “News organizations were concerned about maintaining independence and, until the past two decades, financially secure enough not to need help. Philanthropists didn’t see the need, or how journalists could help them achieve their goals.”