Gray Lady For Hire: NYT Reporters and Their Sources Taking Cash from Billionaire Green Groups

NGOs are now funding, sourcing, and writing stories for the nation’s paper of record

For years, the New York Times has collaborated with a billionaire-funded ENGO network to publish ideologically slanted, factually inaccurate stories on topics near and dear to eco-activist hearts. These articles are written by reporters trained and financed by the activist group Earth Journalism Network (EJN).

And at least in the latest case, the “expert sources” quoted in these stories–high-profile environmental activist groups and sympathetic academics–are part of the very same funding network, receiving financial support from the foundations that fund EJN. In every instance we investigated, the purpose of the EJN-sponsored story was to mirror and amplify the group’s otherwise niche environmental agenda.

But now, the industry targeted in the latest payola play has confronted Times masthead editors with clear evidence of these glaring conflicts of interest.

Origin story: attacking Chile’s salmon farmers

The scandal begins with an August 13 report disparaging the Chilean salmon industry entitled “Salmon Farms in Patagonia Face Growing Opposition.” Chilean farmed salmon is an important economic driver in Chile’s economy and also supplies about half the product consumed in the U.S. That means the product has to meet tough American import standards. Nevertheless, the Times portrays these farmers as careless polluters of the country’s pristine waters, offending local indigenous populations while jeopardizing public health with unnecessary use of antibiotics. 

To sell this misleading tale of corporate skulduggery, the Times slants the data, excludes key details from its reporting, and promotes outright falsehoods that any responsible newspaper would have refused to print. 

But the more striking aspect of the story is why the Times made so many critical mistakes. 

The answer is that the reporters and their sources were all paid by the same donor network. 

That’s right, this story on Chilean salmon is the latest in a series of articles conceived, reported, and written entirely by eco-activist-funded journalists.

For starters, all three reporters behind the salmon farming story are affiliated with EJN. The two bylined authors, Casey Smith and Lucy Meyer, participated in a journalism course at the University of California, Berkeley taught by EJN Executive Director James Fahn. Smith also lists a 2019 EJN grant award on her resume. Meanwhile, John Bartlett, who is cited as a contributor to the piece, filed a story for EJN as recently as August, the same month the Times article was published. Indeed, EJN took credit for all the “local journalism” in Chile that made it into the New York Times piece:

Many of the same foundations that fund Earth Journalism Network also support Oceana, a marine-focused mega-ENGO that has attacked Chile’s salmon industry for years, and was also quoted by the NYT in the same story. Some of these donors also finance the United Nations and Monterey Bay Aquarium, both of which are cited in the Times’ article as ostensibly objective authorities. To boot, the lone medical expert quoted in the piece receives research funding from Pew Charitable Trust, another major EJN donor. 

Aside from a single sentence noting that EJN funded “early reporting” for the story, the Times made no mention of these extensive connections between the authors of the article and the sources they quote. In response to a letter from Chilean salmon farmers documenting all the conflicts of interest in the article, the Times PR department doubled down:

“As the article makes clear in its text, a grant from the nonprofit journalism organization Earth Journalism Network supported early reporting (in this case, travel) but the journalists have no affiliation with EJN and this piece was reported and edited entirely independently under The New York Times's editorial direction without any contact with EJN.” [our emphasis]

A longtime collaboration

How long has EJN collaborated with the Times? For more than a decade. As far back as 2010, New York Times climate reporter Andrew Revkin was promoting his relationship with the ENGO. In a blog post published that December, Revkin wrote about his experience at an EJN-sponsored workshop in Mexico:

“The participants included 31 journalists from 26 developing countries … along with 10 journalists from the United States.(The activities and journalists’ travel costs, including mine, were underwritten by the Earth Journalism Network of Internews, a nonprofit group seeking to foster unfettered, credible and innovative media around the world.)” [emphasis ours]

Of particular note were Revkin’s observations about the pitfalls of environmental reporting, including his warning about “the distorting power of journalistic balance[!], if applied blindly in coverage of complicated science.” One of the bedrock principles of ethical journalism is apparently an impediment to the Times’ goals. 

“[F]ocusing on disputes masks established knowledge,” Revkin added. Complicating the Times’ insistence that EJN plays no role in its reporting, Revkin emphasized that the activist group actually shapes environmental coverage globally:

“In fact, Earth Journalism Network has become a network of networks, linking journalism groups in Asia, the Americas and Africa thanks to years of work by its staff and director, James Fahn, an American writer focused on Southeast Asia.”

The Times itself provides ample evidence of EJN’s active role in massaging environmental coverage, publishing four stories by EJN-trained UC Berkeley graduates between May 2020 and November 2021.“The program has celebrated many of these milestones. Last year, for instance, several Earth Journalism students published their stories in The New York Times,” EJN boasted in a 2022 blog post.The same year, the group eagerly told its donors about its collaboration with the media, the Times included.

The news business continues to crater as ad revenue, even at “the paper of record,” dries up. Publications that might once have been above such pay-to-play arrangements are increasingly willing to bend or break their rules to partner with well-funded nonprofits farming issue-specific content. The New York Times, CNN, The Guardian and even the Associated Press have succumbed to this temptation. As EJN’s Fahn explained earlier this year, the media is growing more comfortable with these collaborations as time goes on:

“Philanthropy has money for journalists if you know how to ask for it,” Rachel White, president of TheGuardian.org, wrote in a post for Climate Blueprint. Don’t be shy, she told her media colleagues, “Ask big, get big:”

 “All too often, funding seekers sell themselves short by not taking into consideration all the costs required to deliver a project well, or feel uncomfortable asking for ‘too much.”’ 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.” 

But those donors want results too. The editor of The Examination, Ben Hallman, explained recently to Columbia Journalism Review that he demonstrates that to his top benefactor, Bloomberg Philanthropies, with “return on investment.” 

“What I try to do, and what I think a lot of journalists are trying to do, is be able to speak to what the return on investment is. I know that’s a weird phrase for a journalist, but that’s how a lot of funders think, so we have to think that way as well.”

This latest version of pay-for-play in the New York Times shows just how slippery that slope has become—and how vertiginous the fall. The donors have now taken control of every aspect of the journalism process from start to finish. They hand-pick the reporters, often from within their own training programs. They designate the topics, select the locations, arrange the travel and logistics. They line up all the sources, already on their payroll. When the trip is over, they help compose the story. And then they turn to an established news outlet to publish, thus giving the article the veneer of original, objective journalism. 

Readers would be correct to ask whether the finished product can even be called journalism at all.