Media Matters’ Evlondo Cooper joins FAIR's weekly radio program CounterSpin to discuss broadcast news climate coverage in 2023
Cooper: “And so a key to improving coverage … would be to understand that the climate crisis is the background for a range of issues, social, economic, political. And begin incorporating climate coverage in a much broader swath of stories …”
Published
Full Episode here.
CounterSpin-2024-03-22
Citation From the March 22, 2024, episode of CounterSpin
JANINE JACKSON (HOST) : And then another thing is, you could say the dominance of white men in the conversation, which I know is another finding, that’s just kind of par for the elite media course; when folks are talked to, they are overwhelmingly white men. But it might bear some relation to what you’re seeing as an underrepresentation of climate-impacted populations, looking at folks at the sharp end of climate disruption. That's something you also consider.
EVLONDO COOPER (SENIOR RESEARCHER): Yeah, we look at coverage of, broadly, climate justice. I think a lot of people believe it’s representation for representation’s sake, but I think when people most impacted by climate change—and we’re talking about communities of color, we’re talking about low-income communities, we’re talking about low-wealth rural communities—when these folks are left out of the conversation, you’re missing important context about how climate change is impacting them, in many cases, first and worse. And you’re missing important context about the solutions that these communities are trying to employ to deal with it. And I think you’re missing an opportunity to humanize and broaden support for climate solutions at the public policy level.
So these aren’t communities where these random acts of God are occurring; these are policy decisions, or indecisions, that have created an environment where these communities are being most harmed, but least talked about, and they’re receiving the least redress to their challenges. And so those voices are necessary to tell those stories to a broad audience on the corporate broadcast networks.
JACKSON : Yes, absolutely. Another finding that I thought was very interesting was that extreme weather seemed to be the biggest driver of climate coverage. And that, to me, suggests that the way corporate broadcast media are coming at climate disruption is reactive. “Look at what happened.”
COOPER: Totally.
JACKSON: And even when they say, “Look at what’s happening,” and you know what, folks pretty much agree that this is due to climate disruption, these houses sliding into the river, it’s still not saying, “While you look at this disaster, know that this is preventable, and here is who is keeping us from acting on it and why.”
COOPER: Yeah, that is so insightful, because that’s a core critique of even the best coverage we see, that there is no accountability for the fossil fuel industry and other industries that are driving the crisis. And then there’s no real—solutions are mentioned in about 20% of climate segments this year. But the solutions are siloed, like there are solution “segments.”
But to your point, when we’re talking about extreme weather, when you have the most eyeballs hearing about climate change, to me, it would be very impactful to connect what’s happening in that moment—these wildfires, these droughts, these heat waves, these hurricanes and storms and flooding—to connect that to a key driver, fossil fuel industry, and talk about some potential solutions to mitigate these impacts while people are actually paying the most attention.
JACKSON: And then take it to your next story about Congress, or your next story about funding, and connect those dots.
COOPER: Exactly. I mean, climate is too often siloed. Right? So you could see a really great segment, for instance, the Willow project at the top of the hour, and this is on cable. But the example remains.
JACKSON: Right.
COOPER: Exactly. I mean, climate is too often siloed. So you could see a really great segment, for instance, on the Willow Project, at the top of the hour—and this is on cable, but the example remains—and then later in the hour, you saw a story about an extreme weather event. But those things aren’t connected, they’re siloed. And so a key to improving coverage in an immediate way would be to understand that the climate crisis is the background for a range of issues, socioeconomic, political. Begin incorporating climate coverage in a much broader swath of stories that, whether you know it or not, indirectly or directly, are being impacted by global warming.