Public Resource
The media is still falling short on climate
Emily Atkin and Arielle Samuelson. HEATED
HEATED analyzed 133 breaking news stories about recent climate-fueled weather in the United States. The results were dismal—but there were some bright spots. Only 44 percent of digital breaking news articles mentioned the climate crisis or global warming. Stories about heat waves fared slightly better, with 52 percent mentioning climate change. Only 25 percent of stories about extreme rainfall mentioned climate change. Even fewer stories about this month’s climate-fueled extreme weather explained to readers why the climate crisis is happening in the first place. Of 133 articles about unprecedented heat and flash floods, only 15 articles—or 11 percent—mentioned fossil fuels, the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Only one article, from the BBC, mentioned deforestation. No articles mentioned animal agriculture. Yet despite the dismal numbers overall, some news outlets stood out for consistently mentioning climate change in all their breaking heat and rainfall articles this month. Those outlets were numerous, but included NPR, Vox, Axios, the BBC, and Agence France-Presse (AFP).