NY Submit composite
Information to order: The Related Press admits it’s taken $8 million from local weather activists to put in writing about their pet points, so it’s “assigning greater than two dozen journalists internationally to cowl local weather points.”
If anybody had the least doubt what angle the ensuing tales will take, the AP defined that it discovered “that funders weren’t simply being beneficiant; they'd their very own objectives to attain.” Ya suppose?
For the reason that AP feeds newspapers, web sites and TV stations throughout the nation and even the world, the “donors” have a fantastic probability of getting all their cash’s price in propaganda, although all of the ensuing content material is to be clearly labelled as such.
Sorry: That is news-as-prostitution. Pay the media to get the protection you need.
The venerable New York Instances has tapped nonprofits to fund particular reporting tasks, together with a narrative in regards to the metropolis after Superstorm Sandy. A Ford Basis grant enabled the Previous Grey Woman to rent a incapacity fellow to provide tales about disabilities. In each instances, the funders needed authorities motion — and knew Instances tales would assist them get it.
These causes could seem benign, however the precept stays the identical: Renting out your institutional judgment on what information to cowl (and, inevitably, how to cowl it) betrays your guarantees to your readers.
Let the “donors” purchase adverts in the event that they wish to push their trigger.
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