Why is the US news media so bad at covering climate change?
The US news media devotes startlingly little time to climate change – how can newsrooms cover it in ways that will finally resonate with their audiences?
This article is excerpted from an piece published by Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation. The Guardian is partnering with CJR and The Nation on a 30 April conference aimed at reframing the way journalists cover climate change. More information about the conference, including a link to RSVP, is here.
Last summer, during the deadliest wildfire season in California’s history, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes got into a revealing Twitter discussion about why US television doesn’t much cover climate change. Elon Green, an editor at Longform, had tweeted, “Sure would be nice if our news networks – the only outlets that can force change in this country – would cover it with commensurate urgency.” Hayes (who is an editor at large for The Nation) replied that his program had tried. Which was true: in 2016, All In With Chris Hayes spent an entire week highlighting the impact of climate change in the US as part of a look at the issues that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were ignoring. The problem, Hayes tweeted, was that “every single time we’ve covered [climate change] it’s been a palpable ratings killer. So the incentives are not great”.