Propaganda?
A Word of Caution on the US Media’s Climate Coverage Op-Ed by Logan Solomon On February 10, 2022, temperatures soared to record highs—10 to 20 degrees above normal—in Southern California, contributing to three separate brush fires. National news agencies like CNN, NBC, and ABC, along with local news like San Jose Mercury News, ABC7 San Francisco, San Diego Tribune, and KTLA covered the burns. However, none of these networks mentioned climate change as a contributor to the fires. Instead, they characterize the heat wave as “unusual,” “unseasonably high,” “rare,” and perhaps most bizarrely, a “DelightMare,” a supposed combination of delightful and nightmare according to ABC7 San Francisco. People are naturally concerned when they see the devastating impacts that weather can bring. If a viewer is not informed that climate change is increasing the odds of extreme weather occurring, they are unlikely to advocate for the implementation of policies that protect their communities by addressing climate change. Media Matters for America, a non-profit media watchdog group, reported that in 2020 climate coverage made up just 0.4 percent, or 112 minutes, of overall coverage on major corporate news shows such as ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox News. Of those 112 minutes, only 29 percent of this coverage were segments on ‘climate solutions.’ These numbers beg the question, why is climate change covered so little? Why does the media not consistently discuss climate mitigation measures? A useful resource in trying to answer these questions is Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman’s 1988 book Manufacturing Consent. Chomsky and Herman outline an analytical framework to trace the influence of money and power through the institutional structures and relationships of U.S. media. This framework is called the ‘Propaganda Model.’ Chomsky and Herman’s framework analyzes the system that mainstream climate coverage operates within, highlighting five filters that distort media to serve the powerful: media ownership, advertising money, sourcing
from ‘experts’ and insiders, flack, and having a common enemy. These five elements reinforce one another, shaping what issues the media chooses to cover and their positions on said issues, as well as influencing what stories they believe are not worth covering. Media Ownership Mainstream media companies are like any corporation—they function to benefit those who own the company. These owners possess not only the ability to influence their network’s rhetoric, but also an economic interest in manipulating climate coverage. Shareholder voting is the legal right that allows company owners to engage in business matters. Those with partial ownership, or shares, are given a proportional vote on significant issues that may affect the value of shares. In practice, voting on any business choice can occur, and commonly involves the appointment or removal of company members in upper-level positions. This power to influence media leadership damages climate change coverage efforts by giving power to shareholders that more often than not have economic ties to the fossil fuel industry. This shareholder influence could lead media organizations to take actions that negatively affect climate policy, misinform the general public, or skew discourse to favor special interests. With shareholder voting being proportional, those with more ownership have more power. Forbes documented in 2016 that 15 billionaires spent tens of millions of dollars operating in news markets of all sizes, with many having majority or complete ownership in multiple news organizations. Richard Murdoch is an investor and board member of fossil fuel-based company Genie Energy. He also has a controlling interest in News Corporation, which has a plurality share in Fox Corporation, which is the operator of the most-watched news network in 2021, Fox News. News Corporation also fully owns The New York Post and Wall Street Journal. Jeff Bezos,
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