Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism is a living monument to journalism, having prepared generations of journalists for jobs in the best American newsrooms. Its distinguished graduates have included iconic columnist Molly Ivins, former New York Times executive editor Joseph Lelyveld, “60 Minutes” correspondent Steve Kroft, and on and on.

Not surprisingly, the school’s Columbia Journalism Review is considered “must” reading for journalists across the country, not just its students. The magazine celebrates journalism at its finest, but also regularly skewers media outlets that fall short of meeting journalism’s most exacting ethical and professional standards. It is the highly respected voice of a highly respected school. But now this august journalism school is drawing harsh criticism after having thrust itself into a long-running and highly partisan fight between the energy sector and a group of environmentalists bent on a campaign to ban the use of fossil fuels. Never mind the strength or weakness of either side of the debate. That’s not the point. The point is whether, as a symbol of fair and honest journalism, the school practices what it preaches. The criticism that Columbia is drawing cuts to the core of its mission: It faces questions about the ethical standards of its journalism after taking money from major critics of the energy industry and then having its students produce what amounted to a hit job on the industry. The episode is all the more noteworthy given that Columbia’s work was published in, and in association with, yet another venerable institution of the news business, the Los Angeles Times. In a sense, Columbia and the L.A. Times are victims of self-inflicted wounds that could have been avoided altogether if these two institutions had abided by basic reporting rules that have guided generations of journalists. But it appears that we are living in a new age when mounting pressures on the news industry — from dwindling revenues to the frantic pace of the 24-hours news cycle — are leading many outlets to make compromises that would have been unimaginable in previous generations. That sad fact certainly seems to be the case in the saga involving Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism and the L.A. Times. The controversy stems for a reporting project that was undertaken by Columbia’s Energy and Environment Reporting Fellowship. The reporting resulted in a story claiming that ExxonMobil scientists discovered in the 1970s that fossil fuels led to climate change but hid the findings and misinformed the public. The story elicited the predictable responses, with the industry criticizing it and some environmentalists praising it. It might have all ended there, except that an important fact emerged that raised serious questions about the objectivity of the reporting. It turns out that a major funder of Columbia’s Energy and Environmental Reporting Project is the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a prominent and aggressive opponent of fossil-fuel industries . Columbia’s Energy and Environmental Reporting Project initially was less than forthcoming about this important connection. As a result, criticism was directed not only to Columbia but also to the L.A. Times, whose editors were no doubt pleased to have gotten assistance in assembling news content purporting to be investigative in nature after years of layoffs have decimated its newsroom. Following news reports highlighting Columbia’s connection to RBF, the newspaper — to its credit — included a note identifying the groups that have been funding the journalism of Columbia’s reporters. The note accompanied the second anti-Exxon story that was published in the Oct. 23, 2015, edition of the newspaper. Unfortunately for the cause of good journalism, the story does not end there. As it turns out, another outlet, InsideClimate News, produced a report similar to Columbia’s saying that ExxonMobil sought to hide the findings its scientists reached in the 1970s that fossil fuels led to climate change. And who funds InsideClimate News? The Rockefeller Brothers Fund. More than that, troubling questions have emerged about InsideClimate News itself. In a recent expose, National Review makes a credible argument that the outlet was founded — and continues to serve as — an arm of a public relations consultancy funded largely by groups with an environmental agenda. I myself am a fan of the environmental agenda. But the virtues of environmentalism are not at issue here. The virtues of journalism are. It is, therefore, appropriate to examine the journalism behind the case that these organizations make against ExxonMobil. In preparing their expose, the journalists drew from — get this — documents that ExxonMobil itself has apparently long shared with the scientific community! That sure doesn’t seem like a conspiracy by ExxonMobil to hide its findings from the public. And nothing is served by suggesting conspiracies that don’t exist, least of all the good efforts of all who work toward responsible stewardship of the environment. For its part, ExxonMobil has raised serious questions about how Columbia — and, by extension, the LA Times and InsideClimate News — used the information the company provided. The company says the journalists both cherry-picked and distorted information to create their narrative. As a former journalist who grew up in the business under the spell of the Washington Post’s Watergate coverage — a high point for serious investigative journalism — I find all of this disappointing. The journalists involved insist that they pursued their story according to the highest standards of the news profession. Who knows? Maybe that is true today. If so, add it to the growing list of examples of how far those standards have fallen.