Climate change fades from news media focus as other social concerns dominate public attention
By Catcher Kemmerer ‘24
A screen-capture of data archives within the September 2020 report from the Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO) at the University of Colorado (CU). Screen-capture taken by Catcher Kemmerer on October 18, 2020. Information credit: sciencepolicy.colorado.edu.
As a multitude of social concerns, confusion, anger and misinformation ravages the United States, its arguably understaffed news media has shifted its focus, sometimes at the expense of other arguably critical coverage; notably, anthropogenic climate change, among other pressing environmental crises. Since the turn of the publication year, the effects of the coronavirus, racial tensions, economic shortfall, and the 2020 U.S. election, among other significant topics of public interest, have consumed public attention and energy. A highly polarized media environment has compounded existing fears, emotions, and tensions.
Prior to the turn of the publication year, news media coverage of climate change had increased substantially, in large part due to an increase in public concern. According to the Yale Climate Connections website, this occurred primarily as a result of two significant explanations. First, as the U.S. economy improved from the Great Recession of 2008, public concern regarding the economy also diminished, easing fears of further economic collapse due to efforts to combat climate change.
Additionally, the election of President Donald Trump in 2016 also appears to have raised - or at least correlated with - an increase in public concern. As the issue has increased in severity, Trump has prioritized job creation within the fossil fuel industry, ignoring potential climate complications, even endorsing climate denialism at times.
Raw numerical data obtained by the Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO) at the University of Colorado (CU), comparing news media coverage of climate change between September 2019 and September 2020. Photos taken by Catherine Kemmerer near Happy Jack, AZ the evening of November 21, 2018. Information credit: sciencepolicy.colorado.edu.
However, though the results of climate change have appeared within the media spotlight at times throughout this year, most notably in consideration of this year’s highly active Atlantic hurricane season and wildfires in the western regions of the United States - including those which recently ravaged Colorado - reporting on the topic has taken a turn away from most news feeds.
According to the Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO) at the University of Colorado (CU), print media coverage of climate change in September 2020 had decreased by 37% from a year earlier. Radio news media coverage of climate change in September 2020 had decreased by 41% from a year earlier, despite stark hyper-recent upward trends.
“There is an unusual confluence of really deeply significant and often very contentious issues that have come together this year,” explained Nigel Jaquiss, an investigative reporter at Willamette Week. “It’s almost like watching the tide when waves are hitting each other instead of lapping onto the shore… that’s created a turbulence and a lack of consistent focus for a lot of reporters because you're really chasing all kinds of shiny objects all the time.”
Recent polling data from the University of Cincinnati, Yale University, and George Mason University found that a majority of the American news audience would prefer more news coverage on the topic. The same poll found that less than 20% of respondents felt they were “very well informed” about the topic. The same study found that most respondents wanted more climate coverage than generally produced at the time of polling.
Alex Williamson, a science educator at Catlin Gabel School (CGS), pointed out a contrary possibility: that the news media may not be the most optimal source of climate change information. Williamson served as a year-long instructor for the Climate Change Palma Seminar during the 2019-2020 academic year.
This naturally provides a situation prone to confusion, distraction and overwhelm, posing a reasonable possibility for the creation of a news arena unsuitable for the clear and concise conveyal of information about crises such as climate change. It has even confused journalists, including in past years.
The Lapland region of Finland, within the Arctic Circle, shortly after a Winter Solstice; photo taken by Catherine Kemmerer the morning of December 28, 2017, near Äkäslompolo, Finland. This region has experienced some of the most severe recent temperature increases in the world.
“There is so much information and disinformation about climate change that it exploits the training that journalists have… We’re supposed to balance perspective and get both sides of every issue, but this is not a policy issue, this is an issue of fact,” noted Lee van der Voo, an author and environmental journalist most recently contracted by The Guardian.
In recent years, the extreme yet presently short-lived nature of climate change has come to light as polling shows a wide spectrum of climate-related concern. Jaquiss further discussed the interactions between human nature, journalism and presenting climate change as a news item: “The problem with climate change as a story [is that it’s] impact is invisible over the short term,” he remarked.
Most individuals interviewed by CatlinSpeak to discuss the issue - including journalists themselves - primarily discussed news media coverage of climate change within a relatively negative light. However, Robert Flynn, a history professor and a resident of Portland, Oregon, opined that the news media has, at least, accurately portrayed the generational differences apparent between youth, adult and senior climate approaches: “I think it’s getting it right,” he said.
Another Portland resident, Donna Murphy, a retired teacher and a member of the climate organization 350PDX, did not observe its presence nearly as confidently: “I wouldn’t see that influence coming into the things that I read,” she noted.
Glacier-fed Grinnell Lake in Glacier National Park, Montana; photo taken by Catherine Kemmerer the afternoon of July 25, 2019 near Babb, MT. Glaciers in this region are rapidly receding due to the effects of anthropogenic climate change.
Meanwhile, Williamson expressed further concerns in addition to apparent climate coverage fallout as a result of emerging social situations - or even the news media’s portrayal of generational differences in climate-centric stories.
“I think that it would be a good idea for news organizations to center youth experience a bit more than they do,” Williamson stated. “Right now, we’re talking about… decidedly short-term questions.”
During her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, new Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett communicated her agreement with a common stance upon confrontation.
“I don’t attack people, just ideas,” she pointed out in response to a question posed by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.).
Amanda Williams, another CGS educator, suggests that journalists may be at fault for confusing the two, especially in climate change discussion. Williams teaches Human Crossroads, a humanities course required for ninth graders, which includes a unit on the topic of climate change.
“When Donald Trump went to California… and he was basically questioning science, that story got in the news,” she said. “But it wasn’t in the context of we should be outraged about the way that climate change is being ignored. It was more in the context of we should be outraged at this particular man, which is what I think most of the framing of news is about.”
However, there appears to be a growing consensus on climate action, even among Trump’s Republican Party, as climate denialism, a false doctrine, continues to lessen. That Republican Party, which has historically taken a more cautious approach to climate action, is beginning to lay out more ambitious climate plans, though these plans remain moderate in comparison to some of those rolled out by their congressional colleagues. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) stands among their most vocal members.
“In the Arctic, we’re seeing warming at twice the average of the rest of the Lower 48. It is directly impacting our way of life,” Murkowski said in a 2019 hearing examining the electricity sector, according to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. “Many remote communities in Alaska are heavily reliant on expensive diesel fuel for heating and power. Integrating cleaner energy technologies, often with a microgrid, can decrease reliance on diesel and provide greater reliability.”
In a Politico article discussing a February climate plan thrust forward by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the political news media company wrote: “There’s wide consensus among Republicans that they need to do something to address climate change, and McCarthy’s election-year push has already attracted support from a broad mix of lawmakers.”
These examples support arguments that the issue of climate change has become, to a degree, a higher priority across the ideological spectrum. But February polling data from the Pew Research Center shows more partisanship and divisiveness in recent years than the survey had ever recorded prior. Meanwhile, through 2019, that increase in concern almost directly correlated with increased news media coverage. However, MeCCO observed that global news media coverage of climate change peaked around the turn of this year - as some of the largest and most significant youth climate protests to date took place - with data through September 2020. However, while the news media preferred the term “global warming,” news media coverage of the topic hit its highest levels near the end of 2009.
Van der Voo touched on another possible explanation for this year’s apparent drop-off in news media coverage on the subject, observing a form of distraction-attraction complex occurring as a result of current U.S. leadership.
“We’re also living in times where we have an administration and a president who’s really good at capturing media attention,” she said. “Sometimes, I think, some of the things that Donald Trump says, he knows he’ll get a reaction… We’ve not been good in the press at shifting focus away, and determining what’s real news and what is supposed to be eye-catching. It’s a kind of unique feature of the last four years, and the media has not really developed good strategies for dealing with it.”
Both Flynn and van der Voo drew lines between the present moment and the tobacco industry’s historical deception regarding the safety of its products.
“Corporations have been lying to Americans for a long time. Tobacco is a great example,” said Van der Voo.
Flynn described, in respect to that comparison: “I think the more mainstream media sources do tend to still give too much of a platform to people who really are essentially a modern-day version of the people in the ‘50s and ‘60s who argued that cigarettes didn’t cause cancer.”
Williamson even questioned whether journalists may even be the optimal forum for the communication of climate information.
A sunset on the Oregon coast; photo taken by Catherine Kemmerer the evening of November 12, 2016 near Manzanita, OR. Sea level rise as a result of climate change is likely to devastate the region in coming years
“While the news media is welcome to jump into the game, and start hiring scientists to evaluate data on their own, the fact that they don’t, and the fact that they don’t necessarily accurately report the information that we know to be true, [is concerning].” Williamson said. “If you look at the media coverage of climate change, it is still presented as a controversy.”
Nevertheless, as 2020 comes to a close, the news media is once more recovering its previous reporting on climate change. Recent statistics obtained by MeCCO show coverage from The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times, sources well-known for comprehensive climate change coverage, again on an uptick, with USA Today also reporting more on the topic.
On the other hand, The Wall Street Journal has seen a slight downturn in its environmental reporting. Additionally, between just August and September 2020, print media coverage of climate change increased by 46%; radio news media coverage of climate change increased by 90%; and the climate coverage of wire services - such as the Associated Press - increased by 84%. Within the US alone, television - among the U.S.’ most heavily frequented news media - climate news coverage increased 172% between the two months.
The same statistics show that globally, the rate of climate coverage has begun again to climb as well, with coverage increasing steadily on global wire services, and in all major world regions, including the historically inactive climate news media in the Middle East, which could struggle in a transition from oil to renewable energy.
Regardless, van der Voo concluded her interview with a reflection upon human comprehensive capacity, in turn considering a potentially influential concern about the present deficiency in journalistic reporting on climate change.
“Given the information, [people can educate themselves], but we are living in [times] with such distorted, disorganized, decentralized information… that I’m not sure I’m convinced people really have the tools.”
As the United States continues to shape itself after an election defined by historically high tension, the future development of climate information within its news media remains unclear. However, if recent trends are any measure of that future, the news media, despite a recent downturn in climate reporting, may soon experience a notable rebound in journalism considering the topic.