Foundation Funding is Controlling Climate Reporting
The Climate Blueprint Wants to Turn this Unlimited Funding into Political Impact
Willie Sutton was once asked why he robbed banks. “Because that’s where the money is.” Perhaps we should ask journalists why they are working climate change into every story they write.
The recent Climate Blueprint for Media Transformation is more than just advice for journalists to make an impact. It provides a roadmap for funding, bringing activists closer to journalists in achieving the impact the foundations behind them are seeking.
In the last 25 years, the media landscape, particularly newsprint, was radically transformed, leaving mass media groups vulnerable to exploitation:
The rise of the Internet changed how people got their news and shared information;
The news funding models (ads, subscriptions, want-ads) disappeared;
NGOs grew rapidly in size, position and influence;
Foundations have grown in number and funds with the rapid increase in wealth creation, and have started to run politically-driven programs.
So when two NGOs with substantial foundation funding, that claim to train journalists to report on climate issues, produce a document entitled: Climate Blueprint for Media Transformation, it should be interpreted within the context of how to exploit a vulnerable mass media situation.
Foundations, of course, claim that their donations to news organizations are meant to safeguard independent, responsible journalism. But these safeguards come at a price and more and more, we are seeing the nature of news reporting being dictated by the interests of foundations, their NGO benefactors or related interest groups. And there are no bigger interest groups today than those behind the climate movement.
This is the second part of an analysis of how foundations are using (creating) activist groups to train and direct journalists to report on climate issues. Part One presented the political bias of the Climate Blueprint and its desire to create impact and change rather than report news. This part will look at the two NGOs behind the Climate Blueprint for Media Transformation, the murky web of foundations funding them and the consequences when foundations and NGOs throw massive amounts of cash at journalists in exchange for ink.
The Solutions Journalism Network (SJN)
The Solutions Journalism Network is an NGO primarily dedicated to training journalists (and by training, it means implementing their ideology) but they seem to organize a lot of conferences (mostly focused on transforming climate coverage in the newsroom to integrate all news reporting). According to its last annual report, SJN spent $9.5 million in 2023 (half of which on the salaries of a fairly small NGO). Their funding comes directly from the usual climate-oriented foundations like Oak, Packard, Ford, Gates, Rockefeller and Hewlett…
Perhaps a good amount of their salary payments goes to the five law firms the SJN keep as their legal counsel. They train journalists and hold conferences! Do they really get sued a lot? They re-gifted almost two million dollars last year (assumably grants to journalists).
It is interesting to note that the SJN are aware of the risks of taking foundation funding:
“Some of the funding we receive from foundations goes to support newsroom projects or fellowships for journalists. We recognize that there are potential conflicts of interest inherent in using philanthropic funding to support journalism, just as there are potential conflicts of interest with advertising or sponsorships. But, as public media organizations have shown for years, there are ways to accept and use philanthropic dollars that maintain journalism’s independence and its highest ethical standards.”
Comparing a small group of activists getting $10 million a year to train and influence journalists with PBS or the BBC is quite rich. What the SJN are trying to say is that foundation funding is not like industry funding - that it smells better. Industry though have ethical codes of conduct and are constantly under the microscope for any funding they do. Foundations are driven by their key objectives, seek impact and have had a long history of non-transparent activities. They are interest groups operating in the dark without scrutiny by virtue of their highly-expressed virtue. SJN has a right to be concerned about how that could smell especially as they attempt to impose a “Climate Blueprint for Media Transformation”.
Covering Climate Now (CCN)
The stated objective of Covering Climate Now is to train and fund journalists and bring together networks to get more coverage on climate issues.
But CCN is not very transparent on their funding:
“Current funders include: Actions@EBMF, Green South Foundation, Michaux Family Foundation, Park Foundation, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, Waverley Street Foundation, and WOKA Foundation. CCNow’s fiscal sponsor is the Washington, DC–based 501c3 The Fund for Constitutional Government.”
The listed foundations are either niche, have no website or are donor-advised funds but when I saw how CCN was also being funded by a fiscal sponsor, my ears started to twitch.
A fiscal sponsor is an organization created by a group of foundations for a particular project. One might ask why these foundations don’t just fund a non-profit organization directly and why, instead, are they supporting a consultant, in coordination with other foundations. There are many reasons including:
the decline in trust in how NGOs are managing funds
the foundations want more direct involvement in a program
they want a further layer to distort their level of funding
the project may raise ethical or operational concerns within the foundation’s board members or trustees.
The Firebreak covered a case study of how a fiscal sponsor was created to distort foundation misuse of funds. The New Venture Fund was created by seven large foundations to fund a tort law firm, Sher Edling, to relentlessly file public nuisance lawsuits against fossil fuel companies that they knew they would never win. These foundations together have diverted more than $10 million to this tort law firm just to be a pest. I am not sure the seven foundations’ founders, trustees or board members would approve of such an irresponsible use of funds (hence the creation of a fiscal sponsor).
Fiscal sponsors are becoming more common. A quick scan of the Oak Foundation’s donor database shows that almost half of their donations are to fiscal sponsored projects, most often via Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (not a foundation but a foundation parasite).
The Fund for Constitutional Government
To understand the dark shadows of foundation funding of NGOs like Covering Climate Now, we need to take a look at the Fund for Constitutional Government. Set up by philanthropist, Stewart R. Mott, the fund has not done much since his passing in 2008. Fiscal sponsorship seems to be their main activity and one needs to wonder if this dormant shell organization was hijacked by special interests for this purpose.
The Fund for Constitutional Government has no office address but rather a mailbox in an office of the Fact Coalition where their present director, Ian Gary, actually works (ironically on corporate transparency). More information could only be found in their IRS 2022 990 Form.
The Fund for Constitutional Government raised $4.3 million in 2022, with $1.2 million going to CCN. Not included in this grant though is that the fiscal sponsor is paying $295,000 directly to two of the fiscal sponsor’s own board members, Mark Hertsgaard and Anna Hiatt, who are also, at the same time, directors at the NGO they are funding, Covering Climate Now. I assume they were the consultants who started the fiscal sponsorship for CCN, raised the money and took it forward. But should these CCN directors’ salaries be off the books and paid by another legal entity? Who are they actually accountable to? Maybe that’s why these groups need so many lawyers.
Interestingly, the Fund for Constitutional Government IRS form claims to have paid the CCN managing director, Judy O’Neill, $135,000 in 2022. There is no trace of any Judy O’Neill at CCN but the present CCN managing director is Judy Doctoroff (although this information is not presently on the website, she uses this title in many promotional videos). There was also a person named Judy Doctoroff O’Neill that was active in journalism many years ago at PBS. Hmm.
Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot!!! Was this a simple mistake, a funding distortion or what could be called a “fortuitous income tax opportunity”? One thing is certain, this is not what is meant by journalists protecting the anonymity of their sources. It does say a lot, though, about how seriously these activist groups take management integrity.
Funders of the Fund for Constitutional Government fiscal sponsor are the usual foundation suspects supporting politicized media activism in influencing the climate narrative within the post-capitalist transition strategy (see image below). They should just merge their foundations into one global fund (which would probably be bigger than most governments).
Money for Nothing
With tens of millions of dollars in the kitty with the expressed ambition of transforming media into a form of climate activism disguised as impact journalism, these two NGOs have the capacity to influence news, rewrite public narratives and determine climate policy decisions. They are not journalists; they claim to train journalists; but what these activists are actually doing is redistributing millions of dollars in foundation funding to journalists willing to follow their blueprint and dance to their political tune. Willie Sutton would have been proud (but in Willie’s case, he went to jail).
So it should come as no surprise that the Climate Blueprint for Media Transformation has a chapter on how to get funding for climate reporting. And since they are sitting on a massive honeypot, their key advice is: Don’t be shy! Make sure to ask for a lot.
“Foundations are in the business of giving away money, and are well accustomed to being asked for it. So ask for what you really need.”
… Cows give milk … foundations give money ...
The person writing this section of the Climate Blueprint is none other than Rachel White from theguardian.org (a US-based non-profit taking foundation donations to give to the UK-based news organization with the same name). She claims in the last ten years that theguardian.org has received about $14 million in foundation funding for their reporting. The Firebreak did an exposé on how much money the Guardian receives from foundations in return for a number of articles on their campaign interests – it is $20 million over the last five years (from what they declared on their website). This money is earmarked for concentrated reporting. For example, an animal rights group gave a large donation to theguardian.org in return for at least ten articles in the Guardian highlighting the problems of livestock rearing.
At the time of the first Extinction Rebellion campaigns, where a ragtag group of ruffians were successfully shutting down the center of London and rapidly spreading their end of days death-cult prediction around the globe, I noted then that it seemed like the entire XR campaign was being conducted from the Guardian’s newsdesk. One cantankerous Guardian staff correspondent, George Monbiot, was assuming a Caligula-like leadership role in the leaderless movement. With hindsight, it is now clear that much of the reporting in the Guardian, at the highest levels, was subcontracted to the foundation-funded theguardian.org. The editors were less transparent about that funding back then.
Theguardian.org have a campaign called Age of Extinction (proudly displaying the Extinction Rebellion logo) with the objective of increasing climate actions and raising public awareness about rising extinctions (due to climate change). The Guardian is not disclosing on this page which foundations are paying the journalists to write on this subject. Oak is a funder.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If all your funding is foundation based, every media report needs to look like an activist campaign. The first part of this analysis showed how the Climate Blueprint for Media Transformation sought to ensure that all climate reporting makes an impact, ie, alarms people, creates outrage, inspires actions and puts pressure on policy decisions. Foundations only donate to impact-driven causes so this should come as no surprise.
Money always has conditions.
Removing Editorial Control
NGOs and foundations are giving millions to journalists, most of whom are working for financially stressed operations, to shape the public narrative and funnel the news cycle into their activist, anti-capitalist climate agenda. In order for the journalists to benefit, every story (from weather events to “domestic violence” to, well, anything) needs to be framed within the climate blueprint strategy and must achieve impact requiring some action or resolution-driven response.
The editors at mainstream media groups like the Guardian are no longer in control of their news content. Freelancers come to them with an idea that a certain foundation funding program will finance, and the editors have an obligation to spend that budget. Are their stories actually newsworthy? In most cases, probably not, but the foundations have earmarked that ink to be spilt on that particular issue. Now they have so much money in their coffers that they are advising the journalists to ask for more.
Readers meanwhile are being hoodwinked, unaware of the foundation-funded activist machine that is now controlling the media, narrative and policy decisions affecting their lives. And the public fear and outrage about the coming climate crisis overwhelms them.