• Corporate broadcast TV outlets — ABC, CBS, and NBC — aired a combined 43 segments about Hurricane Laura during their morning and evening news programs from August 27 through September 4.

• None of the broadcast segments connected the historic and devastating storm to climate change or explicitly mentioned the disproportionate impacts extreme weather events have on socially marginalized communities.

• Only eight broadcast segments mentioned COVID-19 in connection with the storm, despite the logistical challenges the pandemic posed for evacuations.

• The prime-time morning and evening programs of the major cable TV networks — CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC — aired a combined 49 segments about Hurricane Laura from August 27 through September 4.

• None of the cable news segments connected the historic and devastating storm to climate change or explicitly mentioned the disproportionate impacts extreme weather events have on socially marginalized communities.

• Only seven cable news segments mentioned COVID-19 in connection with the storm.

• The August 30 episode of CNN’s State of the Union was the only Sunday show on a major cable network to air a segment about Hurricane Laura. It was also the only cable or broadcast show we analyzed that connected the storm to climate change.

When Hurricane Laura made landfall on August 27, it was the most powerful hurricane to hit Louisiana in 150 years and the strongest August hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The signs that global warming was fueling Laura’s strength were clear: In just 24 hours, Laura went from a Category 1 hurricane to a Category 4 hurricane. According to The Washington Post:

Despite Laura’s strong climate signals, corporate TV news did not connect it to climate change. None of the 43 weekly morning or evening news segments about the storm aired on broadcast TV connected it to the science of climate change.

Cable news networks did not fare any better; none of the morning or prime-time news segments about Hurricane Laura mentioned climate change.

The Sunday morning news shows help set the weekly media and political agenda for politicians, pundits, and other media figures. And, with a combined audience of more than 10 million viewers, Sunday shows have wide viewership. As such, they play a crucial role in determining which issues and whose voices are included in the national dialogue.

But CNN’s State of the Union was the only Sunday show on a major cable news network to air a segment about Laura. It was also the only show we analyzed that mentioned climate change in connection to the extreme weather event. During the August 30 episode, guest anchor Dana Bash repeatedly pressed Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Peter Gaynor about whether he believed that climate change was driving extreme weather and if the climate crisis represents a threat that FEMA needs to address.

Both broadcast and cable TV news did a little better in mentioning the logistical problems the coronavirus pandemic posed to hurricane preparedness. Out of 43 broadcast segments, eight mentioned COVID-19. CBS and NBC tied with four apiece, while ABC did not air any Laura segments that mentioned the global pandemic.

Six of the 49 cable segments about Laura also mentioned COVID-19. CNN led with four, and Fox and MSNBC tied with one apiece.

At least 26 people died in the U.S. as a result of Hurricane Laura, and 85,000 people in southwest Louisiana were still without power two weeks later. It could take weeks or months to restore water and power for the residents. In fact, the entire grid “will require nearly a complete rebuild,” according to a recent press release by Entergy, an energy company that services millions of people across the South.

According to The Associated Press, disaster modeling firms estimate damage caused by Laura to insured property could reach between $8 billion and $9 billion.

In the immediate wake of the storm, people just beginning to cope with its sheer devastation also had to deal with a dangerous heatwave that saw the heat index reach 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

In its coverage, corporate TV news trotted out the familiar tropes: reporters being pushed around by strong winds, tragic stories from devastated families, dramatic tales of heroism, and poignant vignettes of steely resilience. But not one segment about the storm mentioned the systemic social and economic factors that will make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for many families to rebuild or relocate after Laura.

Louisiana is one of the country’s poorest states. In 2017, Lake Charles in southwest Louisiana, now destroyed by Hurricane Laura, had a poverty rate of 22.9%, with Black residents comprising 67% of the poor. This July, the city had an unemployment rate of nearly 10%. It is thus baffling that corporate TV news evinced little to no concern or curiosity about how thousands of some of the poorest people in the country would fare with far fewer resources to adapt, evacuate, and rebuild after this catastrophic storm.

A Media Matters study published on the first day of the hurricane season found that none of the 669 corporate broadcast evening news segments about Hurricanes Dorian, Florence, Harvey, Humberto, Irma, Maria, and Michael, and Tropical Storm Imelda explicitly discussed their outsized harm on socially marginalized communities. A follow-up piece outlined ways that corporate TV news could improve its extreme weather coverage.

Coverage of Hurricane Laura met few, if any, of these basic benchmarks.

Corporate TV news reporting on Hurricane Laura failed to connect it to the climate crisis, failed to report on public policies that exacerbate climate impacts and hamper recovery, and failed to contextualize disproportionate impacts of extreme weather events like Laura on socially marginalized communities.

And, instead of investing time in places like Cameron and Calcasieu Parish to tell the stories of the difficulties the impacted communities will face in rebuilding, corporate TV news parachuted out of the story as soon as the winds died down. Less than one week after the hurricane made landfall, the last broadcast news segment about Laura aired on the September 1 episode of NBC Nightly News, and the last segment on cable news’ morning and evening programs aired on the September 2 episode of Hannity.

Wildfires. Heat waves. Hurricanes. Millions of Americans across the country have had their lives upended by at least one of these record-shattering extreme weather events in the last month. How much longer can corporate TV media pretend that these are isolated weather events? How much longer can corporate TV media ignore the reality that public policy decisions have driven the climate crisis and continue to perpetuate systemic inequities that lead to disproportionate harm?

Now is the time for corporate news networks to use their platforms to connect extreme weather events to the science of climate change, inform their viewers about why socially marginalized communities are at greater risk, and explain what public policy solutions exist to address these challenges.

For broadcast TV news, Media Matters searched transcripts for morning and evening news programs on ABC, CBS, and NBC in the Nexis, SnapStream, and Kinetiq databases for the terms “hurricane,” “storm,” or “Laura" from August 27 through September 4, 2020.

For the major cable news networks, Media Matters searched transcripts for shows airing from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. EDT and 6 p.m. to midnight EDT on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC.

Media Matters also searched transcripts for the five Sunday morning news shows: ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, CBS' Face the Nation, CNN’s State of the Union, Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, and NBC's Meet the Press.

We reviewed each transcript or video for discussion about climate change, COVID-19, or mentions of demographic and socioeconomic terms, such as “African American,” “Black,” “Latin,” “Hispanic,” “low income,” “poor,” or “immigrant.”

We included segments when Hurricane Laura was the stated topic of discussion or when we found “significant discussion” of Hurricane Laura in segments about other topics. We defined significant discussion as two or more speakers discussing Hurricane Laura with one another.