Covering climate change
as a disaster scenario isn't a strategic mistake, it's a necessity.
May 28’s NBC Nightly News led with the disastrous flash flood.
Following the traditional mangling of what a "thousand year
flood" is, the reporter asked the county executive if something other than
"bad luck" caused the second such flood in three years.
There was no mention of climate, nor of the poor land use policies believed to be another factor. (Key moment is at 3:13 in this video.)
There was no mention of climate, nor of the poor land use policies believed to be another factor. (Key moment is at 3:13 in this video.)
Enter good ol' Al Roker. Methodically, rapidly and good
naturedly, the veteran meteorologist laid out the link between climate
change and ungodly downpours on Thursday's NBC Today Show in less than 40 seconds. So it can be done.
Also, Harvard's Shorenstein Center ran a lengthy piece by veteran NPR correspondent and Shorenstein fellow Elizabeth Arnold. Amidst many useful points about news coverage of climate, Arnold makes the fundamental point that it's too gloomy to connect with news consumers.
Funny, I had always wondered why Schindler's List
hadn't been re-cast for Broadway as a musical comedy. But seriously, folks....
Arnold prescribes a greater mix of solutions-oriented stories to leave readers,
listeners, and viewers with a message of hope. Easy for an NPR veteran to say,
but just try that over at NBC Nightly or cable news, where I toiled
for 18 years.
Case in point: Media Matters for America, a left-of-center press
watchdog nonprofit, estimated that Roseanne Barr's racist tweet got 16 times as
much cable news attention as the news that Puerto Rico's death toll in
Hurricane Maria may have been understated by a factor of 70. A factor of 70.
And while there's no actual data on this, I'm guessing that
Roseanne's linking racism to her taking Ambien got more news coverage than
scientists linking climate change to weather disasters like Ellicott City.
These days -- particularly in these Trump days -- many of the
key climate stories are political ones. I'll pre-assign a Peabody Award to any
story that can turn Washington's climate politics to a positive, solutions-oriented
piece. The bottom line as I see it, is that we're dealing with the classic
symptoms of addiction, and the patient, hereinafter known as "us,"
doesn't yet know we have a problem.
Covering climate change as a disaster scenario isn't a strategic
mistake, it's a necessity.
Having said that, there are a few valuable places that
specialize in monitoring climate coverage, or in exploring how these issues are
communicated by scientists, activists, and journalists.
Climate Feedback is a California-based group dedicated to
critiquing mainstream press coverage of climate scientists. Its science-heavy
staff and advisors pick apart news stories and opinion pieces for scientific
accuracy, conspicuously picking apart a Wall Street Journal editorial
that exclusively relied on climate-denying sources.
Media Matters for America is a news watchdog site whose
political biases, and Democratic party loyalties, are clear. But they offer
solid research and frequently rapid-response analysis, like the one above on Al
Roker's flood coverage when coverage of climate change or other environmental
issues hits or misses the mark.
Two academic outposts cover polling data and the receptiveness
of audiences for climate news and information. The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the Center for Climate Change Communication often partner on
projects. At the University of Colorado, the Media and Climate Change Observatory does monthly content
counts on how heavily (or not) climate issues are being covered
internationally.