TV Networks Now Cover Climate Change, but They’re Doing It Wrong

Here’s some good news:  according to a new study, the major broadcast news networks are covering climate change more than they have in years.  Now here’s the bad news:  much of that coverage includes misleading arguments from commentators who reject the scientific consensus that humans are warming the planet.

The new analysis was released Wednesday by the liberal group Media Matters for America.   Media Matters reviewed 2014 climate coverage from the evening newscasts and Sunday morning talk shows on ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox Broadcasting Company.  All told, the networks devoted 154 minutes to global warming last year — up 19 percent compared to 2013 and far more than any year since 2009.  That increase is a big deal. Millions of Americans watch the networks’ evening news shows.  And the Sunday shows — ABC’s This Week, CBS’ Face the Nation, NBC’s Meet the Press, and Fox News Sunday — frequently set the agenda for the week’s political reporting elsewhere in the media.
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Of course, sheer quantity isn’t the only — or even the most important — measure of climate change reporting.  For years, news outlets have been plagued by a tendency to balance the scientific fact that we’re warming the Earth with the very unscientific arguments of those who disagree.  That was certainly the case on the Sunday shows last year.  Nearly two-thirds of the climate coverage on NBC’s Meet the Press featured discussions that Media Matters classified as “false balance.”  That included a debate between science educator Bill Nye and Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican who used the opportunity to argue that there is no scientific consensus on global warming.  Both Nye and moderator David Gregory pushed back against Blackburn’s claims, but many viewers may have been confused by the segment.

A far worse discussion aired on Fox News Sunday, where Washington Post columnist George Will and Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel rattled off a series of climate denial talking points, with little pushback from anyone on the panel. ... In all, nearly half of the 2014 climate coverage on both Fox News Sunday and ABC’S This Week featured false balance, according to Media Matters.  Of the four Sunday shows, only CBS’s Face the Nation managed to avoid false balance entirely.

Read more at TV Networks Now Cover Climate Change, but They’re Doing It Wrong