Corporate broadcast TV nightly news and Sunday shows devoted just 112 minutes to climate change in 2020, the shortest duration since 2016, according to an analysis from Media Matters. While last year saw the biggest-ever California wildfire, the most named storms in the Atlantic, the costliest thunderstorm in U.S. history, and a presidential race in which climate change played a central role, coverage of climate change dropped in half from 2019 to 2020 across ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News Sunday. Even when including network morning shows, which gave 267 minutes to climate coverage last year, the climate crisis accounted for just 0.4% of total corporate broadcast coverage. Across TV news, programs consistently failed to note the links between coronavirus and climate change, and broadcasts vastly overrepresented white men. In climate segments women accounted for less than a third of guests, while people of color accounted for just 8%, and only six of the 89 guests featured were women of color. (Media Matters)
