Western media incentivized to report dubious claims about climate change?
- January 3, 2023
Yen Makabenta, The Manila Times
It’s hard to claim it’s news when you’re being paid to report only one side of the climate discourse.
– Steve Milloy
MONEY is playing a big role in climate change propaganda and in sowing public anxiety. Even the biggest and most prestigious Western media organizations are not immune to manipulation into service for climate change advocacy.
A new year-end climate fact-check report claims to have found that The Associated Press (AP) took $8 million in donations to fund climate coverage in 2022. The news cooperative and several other major media publications have engaged in reporting dubious claims about climate change. Nikolas Lanum of Fox News reported exclusively on the findings of the “Climate Fact Check 2022” report on Dec. 22, 2022.
The “Climate Fact Check 2022” report was presented by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Heartland Institute, the Energy & Environmental Legal Institute, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and the International Climate Science Coalition.
The AP news vice president Brian Carovillano declared that AP only accepts money “without strings attached” and he claimed that funders have no influence on the stories conducted.
Similarly, in March 2021, high-ranking US State Department officials discussed a proposal to sponsor foreign journalists to “have experiences that educate them on reporting on climate change,” according to emails obtained by Protect the Public’s Trust and shared with Fox News Digital.