The Associated Press, which used to push leftist politics and trash journalistic standards for free or least very cheap, is finally making some real money from it, out in the open.
Journalism used to derive its power specifically from its autonomy and freedom to call out misbehavior by … anyone. Now the vaunted AP will be “assigning more than two dozen journalists across the world to cover climate issues, in the news organization’s largest single expansion paid for through philanthropic grants.”
The announcement came on Feb.16, and the “philanthropic grants” amount to $8 million over three years.
That’s right: journalists paid by the fabulously wealthy, to create “news” that the fabulously wealthy want out there. The five organizations purchasing AP’s services are the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Quadrivium, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation. Walton and Quadrivium both fund the radical, eco-leftist Environmental Defense Fund. The group pushes massive pollution regulations to Biden’s Build Back Better plan, which it calls “a long-overdue step to address environmental injustice,” reports The New York Post.
In announcing its career shift into open prostitution, the AP acknowledges how “philanthropy” has become an important new funding source for journalism “at a time when the industry’s financial outlook has been otherwise bleak.”
That is when people are no longer paying to subscribe to Democrat-leftist newsletters.
The AP’s is creating a new team to serve at the foundations’ pleasure, including 20 new staffers, and the $8 million in largesse should pay them in ways journalists are not used to.
“This far-reaching initiative will transform how we cover the climate story,” said Julie Pace, senior vice president and executive editor.
No doubt.
The AP has been toying with a less independent role for some time; this is only the most recent of a series of grants it has received since the mid-2010s to shape its coverage of world issues. Some 50 AP “journalists” have their jobs funded through grants.
