(NewsGlobal.com)- Last week, Fox News reported that last year, the State Department sponsored several overseas journalists to take part in a Foreign Press Centers (FPC) “reporting tour” on climate change.
The Foreign Press Centers is an agency within the State Department’s Bureau of Global Public Affairs. It was founded in the 1940s to “deepen global understanding of U.S. policy, society, culture, and values through engagement with foreign media.”
In internal State Department memos obtained through a FOIA request from Protect the Public Trust, in March 2021, State Department officials discussed with Climate Czar John Kerry’s office a proposal to sponsor foreign journalists to “have experiences that educate them on reporting on climate change.”
Officials in Kerry’s office praised the idea, calling it “fantastic.”
The FPC reporting tour, “Combating the Climate Crisis Through U.S. Innovation,” took place over two weeks in March 2021. According to the State Department, the event promoted the Biden administration’s “goal of prioritizing the fight against climate change through global efforts to reduce emissions.”
Included in the tour was a “virtual program to enable journalists to remotely develop their reporting” on the administration’s “renewed approach” to climate change including “its innovation and research” in reducing emissions and renewable energy,” according to the State Department.
When the State Department announced the program in 2021, it failed to mention that US taxpayers were funding the effort or that the State Department was “sponsoring” foreign reporters.
Michael Chamberlain, the director of Protect the Public Trust, told Fox News Digital that while Americans might be shocked to discover they paid for the program, they will not be surprised that the Biden administration used taxpayer money “to promote climate alarmism around the world.”
Chamberlain said the FOIA request revealed that transparency is not one of the Biden State Department’s strengths. He called on the State Department to “come clean” about which foreign publications and journalists taxpayers were forced to sponsor and if taxpayer money was used to commission any articles.
But the State Department pushed back on the claims, telling Fox News Digital that the FPC program didn’t pay reporters and no specific stories were commissioned. Instead, the FPC only covered the cost of expenses for the program.
