I think it’s safe to say that we all feel that cable news networks could do their global warming coverage much better and more extensively than they currently do. But how well do they actually cover the climate crisis?
Last week the U.S. federal government released the National Climate Assessment (NCA). The report details the highly acute impacts of climate change, impacts that are affecting every sector of society already and will only get worse as time goes. It’s an important report, especially for U.S. citizens. But according to new data by ThinkProgress only one American cable news network took the study seriously and actually covered climate change the right way.
Al Jazeera America devoted a total of 120 minutes of airtime to the climate report. That’s miles ahead of FOX News who only dedicated 24 minutes to cover the report. CNN spent less than 80 minutes on it, and MSNBC only thought the new climate report was only worth 61 minutes of airtime. Al Jazeera America (AJAM) clearly devoted the most time to this new climate report, and they did so extensively compared to their competitors.
“Besides reporting directly on the assessment and its contents, AJAM had reporters in San Francisco and South Florida to cover the impacts of sea level rise on coastal communities, one in the West looking at drastically low snowpack and drought, and featured NCA authors, climate scientists, and others explaining the assessment’s findings in-depth. AJAM’s 8pm News hosted by John Seigenthaler devoted over half of its hour-long running time to the climate assessment and its implications, more than Fox News spent over the course of the day,” ThinkProgress writes.
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