The mainstream media spent a decade telling Americans that getting tough on China was dangerous.
Federal filings just revealed why.
And a White House correspondent uncovered the money shaping the mainstream media's coverage of China.
How the CCP Put Mainstream Media Journalists on Its Payroll
Federal law requires anyone lobbying on behalf of a foreign government to register with the Justice Department and disclose exactly what they did and who they paid – those are Foreign Agents Registration Act filings, known as FARA.
White House correspondent Natalie Winters cross-referenced those filings with archived CUSEF newsletters and annual reports to surface names the documents never listed together.
The China-United States Exchange Foundation – CUSEF – hired American lobbying firms to do the work.
A 2011 FARA filing from BLJ Worldwide, CUSEF's American PR firm, laid out the strategy in writing: the plan was to staff China trips by "recruiting top journalists" chosen for "effectiveness and opportunities for favorable coverage."
Beijing was not funding cultural exchange. It was building a press operation.
CUSEF was founded by Tung Chee-hwa, a former vice chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference – a central node inside Beijing's United Front system, which a bipartisan congressional report described as a network designed to co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to CCP authority.
More than 120 American journalists from 40 outlets participated in CUSEF-linked trips over more than a decade.
CNN MSNBC and NPR Journalists Named in China Influence Operation
The journalists Winters identified represent the front page of the American press establishment.
Ronald Brownstein, CNN senior political analyst. Jonathan Alter, NBC and MSNBC. David Rohde, NBC senior national security reporter. Ezra Klein, New York Times. Matthew Yglesias, Vox. Steve Clemons, former The Hill editor-at-large. Former senior editors from NPR, Newsweek, the Associated Press, the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune.
In several cases the trips were followed by coverage defending Chinese government positions and attacking Trump's trade confrontation with Beijing. Others told readers the collapse of American manufacturing was simply something they would have to accept.
Shikha Dalmia published a piece titled "China Bashing Is for Losers" the same year she traveled to China on a CUSEF trip.
Bruce Stokes warned that economic decoupling from China would "backfire."
Steve Chapman attacked Trump's tariff policies and published – then deleted – a column arguing Americans should buy Olympic uniforms made in China.
David Rohde's trip produced the starkest results. After returning, he praised the Chinese state's central role in building business and dismissed American politicians' criticism of Beijing as "ideological babble." He told readers the permanent loss of large-scale manufacturing was something they needed to accept.
That message was awfully useful to a regime that spent thirty years watching American factories leave the heartland while Washington elites looked the other way.
Earlier this month, President Trump alleged during a speech that China sought to identify journalists reporting negatively on him and pay them to write more negative stories.
Rohde's response was to call it a "Trump fantasy" designed to undermine trust ahead of the midterms.
Just the News asked Rohde directly whether he attended a CUSEF-sponsored trip. He declined to confirm or deny it.
CUSEF has since scrubbed the webpage bearing his byline from the internet.
Catherine Rampell disclosed her CUSEF funding – in small print at the bottom of two columns. The dispatches from her trip echoed Beijing's position, casting America as the aggressor and calling on Washington to drop what she termed its "zero-sum-game attitude" toward China.
Ezra Klein went further than most. He posted on X that China "bought us some real time" during COVID while America's government "wasted it doing nothing."
Matthew Yglesias joked openly about wanting to "give Party flunkies notes" on improving their propaganda.
How China Propaganda Shaped American News Coverage for 15 Years
The Cold War taught America what Soviet active measures looked like. China studied those lessons and built an upgrade – no forged documents, no dead drops, just first-class airfare and curated meetings with party officials for reporters who valued access above everything else.
The Society of Professional Journalists' own code of ethics states reporters should "refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment" that compromise integrity or damage credibility.
Most of those 127 journalists from 40 outlets never mentioned the trips in their coverage.
American readers got polished analysis from credentialed experts. Beijing got columnists calling Trump reckless on trade, declaring American manufacturing gone for good, and crediting China's pandemic response while Washington fumbled.
Winters read those filings and matched the names to the coverage. Now every outlet on that list faces a question none of them have answered: how many stories were shaped by a trip Beijing paid for – and why did editors let it go on for fifteen years?
Sources:
- Natalie Winters, "Revealed: Here Are the Mainstream Journalists on China's Payroll," Substack, July 27, 2026.
- BLJ Worldwide, Foreign Agents Registration Act Filing, U.S. Department of Justice, 2011.
- Ashe Short, "MS NOW reporter who slammed Trump's China speech took 2011 trip funded by CCP-linked foundation," Just the News, July 28, 2026.
- U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Hearing Transcript on China's Propaganda and Influence Operations, April 30, 2009.