by WorldTribune Staff, July 28, 2026 Non-AI Real World News

Dozens of U.S. legacy media journalists and editors, including those at The New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, and NPR, went on junkets in which they received luxury travel, fine dining, and access to top Chinese officials in exchange for “favorable or open-minded” reporting about the communist regime in Beijing, an investigation found.

The junkets were often organized by front groups with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

“The records reveal a deliberate propaganda model: identify the Americans controlling China coverage, bring them through a carefully managed experience inside the country, provide privileged access to Beijing-approved interlocutors and send them back into their newsrooms with friendlier views of China,” investigative journalist Natalie Winters wrote in a July 28 substack report.

The American journalists, editors, and broadcasters were brought to China via a delegation program run by the Committee of 100, an organization repeatedly linked to figures and institutions inside the CCP’s United Front, the report said.

The United Front is China’s military-grade influence network described by U.S. officials as working to “co-opt and neutralize sources of opposition” to the CCP with various tactics including pay-for-play trips.

According to the “Standards for the American Free Press” as published by Free Press Foundation,

• Journalism’s first obligation is to the disinterested pursuit of truth. and
• Journalists must maintain independence from those they cover.

Other U.S. legacy media outlets targeted by the CCP included The New Yorker, The Atlantic, PBS, WNYC, Newsweek, Time, Foreign Affairs, Financial Times, and USA Today, Winters noted.

Records obtained by Winters show the program sought to “enhance understanding and improve perceptions of China in the U.S.”

“Participants were expected to share their experiences with colleagues after returning home and reshape what the organization portrayed as unfairly negative coverage of Beijing,” Winters noted.

A senior Financial Times editor said he would never again “think or write about China” without reflecting on the trip.

WNYC host Brian Lehrer confirmed that his perception of China changed “in 100 ways.”

A deputy business editor at The New York Times returned with new story ideas and plans to “shape my staff across Asia in some different ways.”

Winters listed the U.S. legacy media participants in the pay-for-play junkets:

The titles below reflect the participants’ positions at the time of the trips.

2007

David Brooks, columnist, The New York Times

Juan Williams, senior political analyst, NPR

Charles Cook, publisher, The Cook Political Report

2009

Jill Abramson, managing editor, The New York Times

John Byrne, executive editor, BusinessWeek

Clarence Page, columnist and editorial-board member, Chicago Tribune

2010

Rana Foroohar, deputy editor, Newsweek

John Gapper, associate editor and columnist, Financial Times

David Ignatius, associate editor and columnist, The Washington Post

Tavis Smiley, host, PBS and Public Radio International

Dean Baquet, former Washington bureau chief of The New York Times (listed on schedule but omitted from the final public roster)

2011

Eugene Robinson, columnist and associate editor, The Washington Post

Nicholas Goldberg, editorial-pages editor, Los Angeles Times

Rekha Basu, columnist, The Des Moines Register

2012

Clive Crook, senior editor, The Atlantic

Brian Lehrer, host, WNYC

Winnie O’Kelley, deputy business editor, The New York Times

Gary Silverman, U.S. news editor and deputy managing editor, Financial Times

Jonathan Tepperman, managing editor, Foreign Affairs

2013

Henry Finder, editorial director, The New Yorker

John Harris, editor-in-chief, Politico

Fred Hiatt, editorial-page editor and columnist, The Washington Post

Adam Kushner, executive editor, National Journal

2014

Howard Fineman, editorial director, The Huffington Post

Brian Gallagher, editorial-page editor, USA Today

Mark Halperin, editor at large, Time

Ruth Marcus, columnist, The Washington Post

Freedom Rocks! Until It Is Gone

  Investigation: 26 legacy media journalists took pay-for-play junkets to Communist China, WorldTribune.com