No Green Deal: Widespread Media Silence on One of the Biggest Climate Stories of 2018
Public Citizen analysis shows that despite numerous high-profile congressional candidates running, and winning, on a “Green New Deal,” and a surge of post-election interest and advocacy in creating a select committee on the proposal, many major media outlets gave it scant coverage.
Summary
From Nov. 1 to Dec. 27, major news networks largely ignored the proposal – that a U.S. House committee draft a plan to fix the climate crisis within 10 years of enactment using a program of clean energy jobs, infrastructure overhauls and other measures – during their morning and 4 p.m. to midnight blocks, with the exception of Fox News, which ran eight segments mentioning it. MSNBC ran three and ABC one. During the same period, only half of the top 50 U.S. newspapers printed anything that mentioned the proposal, with two of 25 papers running only letters to the editor.
The surge of interest in a Green New Deal was one of the most significant climate change stories of 2018, and many media outlets gave it little or no attention.David Arkush, managing director of Public Citizen’s Climate Program