The Massive Funding Of Journalism By Agenda-Driven Activist Groups Will Only Increase in 2024

Anyone who works in media knows that traditional mainstream newsrooms are in crisis in the changing media landscape. Yet even with local news in danger and newspapers in precipitous decline financially, it doesn’t mean there isn’t spending, hiring, or continuing influence — at least on certain topics.

It’s a seeming disconnect, but there’s a reason they aren’t truly dead: They’re on life support. That is, huge transfusions of cash, not from ad sales or subscriptions but from deep donor pockets. A phenomenon that’s especially noticeable and widely accepted in climate change journalism, which when funded is almost entirely done so by a single agenda.

Americans hear often and loudly from the press about advertisers coming and going from X (formerly Twitter) under Elon Musk, but do not hear or see a lot of reporting on revenue, including advertising, from the oldest prestige media format, newspapers.

Looking at the most recent info from the U.S. Census Bureau, we see that in 2020 newspaper publishers brought in less than half the revenue they did in 2002, and circulation dropped by more than half as well, dropping a staggering $24.2 million between 2000 and 2020.

Axios reported last year that by 2026, U.S. newspaper publishers will have lost “$2.4 billion in ad investment” since 2021.

“Print advertising will fall from $7 billion last year to $4.9 billion by 2026. That 7.7% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is well ahead of the global average decline, which is -5.1% CAGR,” Axios wrote.

But subscribers and advertisers drying up doesn’t mean the money is. The New York Times, perhaps the most significant of the print journalism outfits (but by no means a local newsroom in the sense herein), reported in September of this year that $500 million was pledged in support of “local news” by “more than 20 nonprofit organizations” including the MacArthur Foundation, in an effort dubbed “Press Forward.”

That probably sounds good, and certainly the mission of the organization is imbued with Glorious Purpose at the website: “Press Forward will enhance local journalism at an unprecedented level to re-center local news as a force for community cohesion; support new models and solutions that are ready to scale; and close longstanding inequities in journalism coverage and practice.”

Press Forward pointed out the dire straits faced by newsrooms across the country in explaining why its participating organizations are stepping in:

Since 2005, approximately 2,200 local newspapers have closed, resulting in 20 percent of Americans living in “news deserts” with little to no reliable coverage of important local events. Press Forward seeks to reverse the dramatic decline in local news that has coincided with an increasingly divided America and weakening trust in institutions.

And that is only one prominent and recent example. The Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy noted in January of 2023 the emerging trend of philanthropic partnerships to support for-profit journalism — in other words foundations and orgs ponying up dough for media and press companies for special projects or other purposes.

Foundations are allowed to make grants to for-profit organizations such as news outlets as long as those grants substantially support the foundation’s already tax-exempt mission (IRS, 2022a). Another word for this type of activity could be “program-related investments.”

The words “substantially support the foundation’s already tax-exempt mission” can be seen as pretty telling, here. By seeing who is making these investments you can see what mission the media organization is undertaking which is “substantially” aligned with the group.

Media outfits are hiring staff specifically to seek such funding, and the trend is growing. It’s not a crazy concept to consider whether a newsroom being kept in the black (and white) by an agenda-based organization might skew their coverage to “substantially” support that agenda, or at least steer the more critical eye elsewhere. In fact, Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy addressed the notion a few years ago, writing that these are not “passive” supporters but “active” ones.

An obvious example is on the issue of climate change. Saying you’re doing something for the good of mankind is a particularly convenient justification for acting in ways that don’t meet the normal test of whether one is being biased or bought, and climate initiatives from media organizations are a dime a dozen these days — if “dime” is understood to mean absolute millions of dollars.

The Associated Press, whose coverage increasingly fills a variety of newspapers that are hemorrhaging staff, announced in February 2022 it was receiving more than $8 million in grants from various foundations and groups to focus on the climate change issue and hire twenty new reporters dedicated to that issue. That’s more than the full reporting and editorial staff at so many local newspapers in America, a fact which speaks to the impact of this grantmaking, in that the reporting on just this funded issue can end up dominating your local print paper.

The AP acknowledged when announcing the enormous project that it is representative of “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.”

The AP’s project received grants from progressive money pillar the Rockefeller Foundation, the NYT’s Headway Initiative from progressive behemoth The Ford Foundation, and NPR’S climate project from both of those liberal progressive funders. Both organizations have supported extreme causes related to the environmental movement such as population control, disruptive or violent protests, and more.

And on the subject of how such monies can affect coverage which these media outlets claim remain editorially independent, it’s worth noting that the AP’s climate coverage and reporting the fossil fuel industry, articles frequently include ample comments and quotes from environmentalist groups and advocates, but only infrequently comment from the carbon-producers or industries and companies that are frequently at the heart of both the news stories and the related policy and legislative discussions about the climate. Or even just an indication that a comment was requested. Asking for comment from a principal in or subject of an article, or from a company or entity addressed in the article or in other quotes from opposing groups, is a pretty standard journalistic practice.

There could be a variety of reasons for that. Although the AP and other recipients of millions are a principal subject of this post, I did not reach out to them for comment. Which isn’t so much ironic as it is “for tat.”

Newsrooms have long pursued the “follow the money” mantra, and it’s been seen in reporting on everything from lobbying groups to tobacco companies, medical research, and more.

But when it comes to taking big money from massive liberal groups dedicated to progressive causes, you’re asked to accept that press outfits are going to maintain their editorial independence and won’t be influenced by the donors who, you will remember, must by law grant money to causes that are “substantially” aligned with their own.

Millions of dollars, dozens of hires, singular agendas, and not much accountability, for a major issue with enormous real-world and daily life implications, from a media that has already earned the distrust of Americans as poll after poll shows. It’s not a pretty picture — but then again neither is the prospect of the death of local newsrooms, the end of print newspapers, or a corporate media so dominated by profit that news becomes indistinguishable from advertising.

So not an easy or good set of choices either way.

It is true the list of liberal non-profits supporting for-profit media companies is a testament to something, but whether to the selfless societal interest in keeping journalism alive, or simply to ensuring that the causes they support are given the appearance of impartial truth from reporters whose jobs were literally provided for by the donors … well that’s just something you’ll have to guess at, I guess.

And you’ll have to guess a lot, because the trend is going toward, not away, from big money donations by overtly activist organizations.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.