The Associated Press has expanded its climate and environmental reporting with millions of dollars in philanthropic grants, including funding for more than two dozen journalists, raising questions among media critics about how readers should evaluate outside financial support for news coverage.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
The Associated Press’ reliance on millions of dollars in philanthropic grants to finance climate and environmental journalism is drawing renewed scrutiny over the growing role outside foundations play in supporting reporting at major news organizations.
The debate was raised in a commentary published by The Empowerment Alliance, which argued that readers should pay attention not only to what news organizations report about climate and energy policy but also to who helps finance that coverage.
AP maintains that outside financial support does not give donors control over its journalism and says it retains complete editorial authority over grant-supported reporting. The grants, however, have allowed the organization to create and maintain reporting positions devoted specifically to climate, water and environmental issues at a time when the traditional economics of the news industry have weakened.
The arrangement reflects a broader change in American journalism as advertising, subscriptions and payments from news organizations that purchase wire services have come under pressure.
The Empowerment Alliance commentary argued that financial relationships should be disclosed because readers benefit from knowing when journalism is supported by organizations with interests in the subjects being covered.
The author contrasted such arrangements with the disclosure expected when a journalist writes or speaks while formally associated with an advocacy organization, arguing that the same principle of transparency should apply to philanthropic funding of mainstream news operations.
The issue comes as public confidence in journalists remains sharply divided.
A Pew Research Center analysis published earlier this year found that “a majority of Americans (57%) express low confidence in journalists to act in the best interests of the public.”
The findings also revealed a substantial partisan divide in perceptions of the news media.
“Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (61%) are more than twice as likely as Republicans and GOP leaners (25%) to say they have confidence in journalists to act in the best interests of the public,” Pew reported.
Against that backdrop, philanthropic financing has become one method for news organizations to fund specialized reporting that might otherwise become difficult to sustain.
AP routinely discloses such arrangements in relevant articles.
A recent Associated Press report concerning an appeals court decision involving Trump administration actions toward Biden-era clean-energy projects carried a disclosure identifying financial support from the Walton Family Foundation.
“The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy,” the disclosure stated.
The Walton Family Foundation supports environmental initiatives in addition to its other philanthropic work and has publicly advocated policies intended to address climate change.
Following passage of former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, the foundation praised the legislation’s climate provisions.
“The challenges of climate change have and will continue to impact every aspect of our lives,” the Walton Family Foundation said at the time. “Government, business, tribal nations, philanthropy, advocates, and others will all need to build on this historic investment together to continue to build momentum for a more resilient future.”
The foundation’s financial relationship with AP predates that statement.
According to the Walton Family Foundation’s own description of its support for environmental journalism, an initial two-year grant beginning in 2021 provided $785,000 to support three Associated Press reporters and related environmental coverage.
The financial commitment subsequently increased.
In April 2023, the foundation announced a three-year, $2.5 million grant that expanded the AP environmental reporting operation established through its earlier support.
“This three-year grant builds on previous support establishing an Environment and Water beat with three dedicated reporting positions. The new grant will continue to fund two text reporters and a video journalist dedicated to water and environmental coverage, while also adding a Spanish-language reporter and photographer. AP retains complete editorial control,” the foundation announced April 21, 2023.
Walton funding represents only part of the philanthropic money AP has received for climate journalism.
In 2022, the Associated Press announced a much larger expansion built around more than $8 million in grants spread over three years.
AP said at the time “it is 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.”
About 20 of the climate journalists were expected to be newly hired under the initiative.
Five organizations provided funding: the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Quadrivium, the Rockefeller Foundation and Walton Family Foundation.
The announcement said roughly “50 AP journalists have jobs funded through grants” and noted that other news organizations had increasingly adopted similar philanthropic financing arrangements.
Those figures illustrate the scale at which foundation money has become integrated into parts of contemporary journalism.
Critics argue that the funding model creates legitimate questions even when no donor exercises direct editorial authority.
Their concern is not necessarily that a foundation dictates the wording of individual stories but that outside financing can determine which beats receive additional journalists, which subjects receive sustained institutional attention and what areas of public policy receive resources that financially strained news organizations might not otherwise be able to provide.
Climate and energy coverage is particularly sensitive because the policies being debated can involve billions of dollars in government spending, major regulatory changes and consequences for electricity generation, transportation, manufacturing and other sectors of the economy.
The Empowerment Alliance commentary argued that readers should therefore be able to consider the interests and policy positions of organizations helping finance reporting when evaluating climate journalism.
AP’s position is that accepting philanthropic funding does not surrender editorial independence. Its disclosures and the Walton Family Foundation’s own announcement state that AP retains control over its reporting.
The larger question raised by the funding arrangement concerns the evolution of the business model supporting journalism.
For much of the newspaper industry’s history, organizations such as the Associated Press depended heavily on revenue generated by member newspapers and other subscribing outlets. As newspaper circulation declined, publications closed or consolidated and newsroom budgets contracted, philanthropic organizations increasingly stepped in to finance particular areas of reporting.
That model can preserve jobs and produce journalism that otherwise might not be financially possible.
At the same time, critics argue it places greater importance on transparency because foundations generally have defined missions and priorities governing where they distribute their money.
The Walton Family Foundation, for example, has openly stated its support for action addressing climate change while simultaneously financing AP journalists covering environmental and water policy.
AP says the foundation does not control their work.
The distinction between funding journalism and directing journalism is therefore central to the debate.
The Empowerment Alliance commentary also argued that the change should be considered in the context of declining public trust in established media. The author contended that major outlets have increasingly moved away from traditional standards of detachment and toward advocacy, contributing to the partisan confidence gap reflected in polling.
That interpretation remains a matter of debate, but Pew’s findings show that public perceptions of journalists differ dramatically according to political affiliation.
Philanthropic funding introduces another factor for readers to assess as they decide how much confidence to place in coverage of contested political and scientific issues.
The grants have indisputably increased AP’s capacity to report on climate and environmental matters. More than two dozen journalists were assigned to climate coverage through the multimillion-dollar 2022 initiative alone, with most of those positions representing new hires.
The disagreement concerns what significance readers should attach to where that money originated.
For supporters of philanthropic journalism, foundation grants provide financial resources for extensive reporting at a time when traditional news-industry revenues are under substantial strain.
For critics, the fact that foundations with established environmental priorities are financing climate-reporting positions makes prominent and consistent disclosure particularly important, regardless of assurances that journalists retain editorial independence.
As outside financing becomes a larger part of the economic structure of journalism, those disclosures give readers information that was less commonly relevant when news organizations financed virtually all of their reporting through their own commercial operations.
The emerging model leaves news consumers with an additional consideration alongside the reporting itself: not simply what an article says, but whether outside organizations helped pay for the journalism and what interests those organizations publicly support.
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