Tuesday, December 22, 2015

InsideClimate News: Journalism or Green PR?

by Jillian Kay Melchior 

When InsideClimate News won a Pulitzer Prize in 2013 for national reporting, one of its writers told the New York Times she hoped that people who considered her publication advocacy journalism would take note of the award and “stop making that mistake.” 
InsideClimate News may be the most influential — and controversial — environmental publication you’ve never heard of. Despite its tiny staff, shoestring budget, and low name recognition, the nonprofit has won several prestigious awards for its content and forged major partnerships with, among others, the Associated Press, the Weather Channel, the Guardian, and Bloomberg.

But its critics claim that InsideClimate News is essentially a mouthpiece run by a public-relations consultancy that gets its funding almost exclusively from groups with an environmental agenda. A National Review examination of tax filings, corporate and trademark paperwork, and other public records involving the nonprofit and its partners has raised even more questions about InsideClimate News, its origins, and its funding.

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