CUSEF paid for journalist trips to China. The firm that ran them described the aim as favorable coverage.
Brown Lloyd James organized the travel and registered under FARA. Reporting on those filings quotes a plan to recruit journalists for favorable coverage. Ezra Klein and Matthew Yglesias went.
CUSEF paid for the trips. Brown Lloyd James organized them from Washington and registered the work under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. CUSEF, the China–United States Exchange Foundation, is the foreign principal in that registration. The firm is the registrant. CUSEF was founded by Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong's first chief executive after the 1997 handover and a vice-chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
Reporting on the Brown Lloyd James filings quotes the recruitment language directly. Journalists were to be "selected for effectiveness and opportunities for favorable coverage." One filing describes the aim as "a fresh and positive look at China's accomplishments." The trips ran about two weeks and included meetings with officials and tours. That reporting puts the guest list, from 2009 on, at more than a hundred journalists from dozens of U.S. outlets.
Ezra Klein went in 2010, while he was at the Washington Post. Matthew Yglesias has said he went in 2009 and that he was not paid for an ongoing arrangement. CUSEF material from those years names both. Reporters and editors associated with NPR, Slate, the Los Angeles Times, and the Associated Press have been named on the same trips.
CUSEF paid for the travel. The firm that spent the money told the Justice Department, in the filings later examined by reporters, that the point was favorable coverage. Klein and Yglesias were on the trips. The reporting does not show a fee paid for a specific story.