Climate Crisis Left Out Of Hurricane News

New Report: ABC, CBS, NBC Covered Climate Crisis Connection to Hurricane Dorian Only Once in 216 Segments on Storm; "Climate change is fueling storms like Hurricane Dorian. But you wouldn't know that from watching broadcast TV news."

Eoin Higgins, September 7, 2019 (Common Dreams)

Even as Hurricane Dorian tore through the Bahamas and crept up the southeastern U.S. seaboard, broadcast news networks were loathe to connect the powerful storm's strength to the climate crisis in spite of the science linking warmer sea surface temperatures to increased frequency of strong hurricanes…[Though the hurricane consumed the newscycle,] only CBS aired a segment tying climate change to hurricane activity like Dorian's…The storm delivered a catastrophic near 48 hour sustained hit on the Bahamas on Sunday and Monday and made landfall on Thursday in North Carolina's Outer Banks region…

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Broadcast TV news shows aired 216 segments on Dorian from August 28 through September 5, according to Media Matters. CBS led with 84, followed by ABC with 73, and NBC with 59. The only segment that discussed climate in the context of the storm aired on the September 4 episode of ‘CBS This Morning’…ABC's only mention of climate change at all during this period was in a segment about Prince Harry's travel sustainability project, which continues the network's trend of prioritizing coverage of the British royal family over the climate crisis. CBS also aired a segment about Prince Harry that mentioned climate…” click here for more

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