Summarised by Centrist
Caleb Howe writes that wealthy liberal foundations are significantly influencing climate change journalism by funding training programs for journalists at top universities worldwide, including Columbia, Harvard, the University of Southern California, and Oxford.
These initiatives, aimed at shaping media coverage of environmental issues, have led to a surge in climate-focused stories across major news outlets. The Associated Press, for example, expanded its climate journalism team with foundation grants.
Howe writes that “After the infusion of funding, AP journalists appeared to forgo seeking comment from the fossil fuels industry on stories that affected them.”
Meanwhile the Covering Climate Now coalition, founded by the Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation, has partnered with over 500 media outlets globally.
Some argue that the influx of foundation-funded journalism, and movement towards climate-centric reporting, risks turning reporters into advocates rather than objective observers.
Howe points out that it’s not just elite institutions receiving money to train climate journalists.
“Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism was founded with a grant from the Knight Foundation. The Knight Center recently received $150,000 from the Mott Foundation to work on DEI issues within environmental journalism,” he writes.
