Several recent reports have sounded the alarm about the state of climate journalism in the U.S. They say that climate journalism is down by significant amounts: 38% since 2021, according to Grist, 35% at major networks since 2024, according to Media Matters for America.
But is climate journalism really in decline? How can we know? And is that the best way to evaluate the health of the climate beat?
Jill Hopke of DePaul University and I tackled these questions in a recent essay for Nieman Reports. Our conclusion is that tracking the number of climate journalists is a much better indicator of the beat than reporting volume alone. And we are facing challenges right now as numerous news outlets have reduced climate positions in the past year.
In my book, I don’t focus on volume of climate or environmental coverage. This is because it’s a very limited way of understanding the state of the beat.
First of all, the studies typically involve only a handful of major news organizations – and never include niche news organizations that focus solely on environment, such as Grist (ironically, given its coverage of the decline and the fact that it has amped up its focus on climate over the last decade).
A closer look at the tracking of climate journalism by The Media and Climate Change Observatory at the University of Colorado (above image) reveals that the 2021/2022 spike is almost entirely explained by the New York Times alone. That’s hardly indicative of the entire industry.
And these studies almost never provide a denominator. An increase or decrease is not very meaningful if there is no comparison point to news production as a whole – or if the only comparison point is the year of highest volume, which what Grist used to make its claim of decline over the last 5 years. This ignores the fact that the same graph demonstrates that climate journalism is significantly up since data collection started 25 years ago: generational progress lost in a short-term focus.
Not to mention that topic volume fluctuation is normal, which is also evident from looking at the graph. Any news topic will look similar. National security reporting spiked after 9/11; economic reporting grew during the global recession; political reporting surges in election years. You can make any of these look like they’re in decline if you only compare to the highest point.
Perhaps more importantly, however, we’re well past the stage when all articles about climate explicitly used the terms “climate change” or “global warming.” Instead, the beat has evolved to reflect the complex nature of climate change as an issue. It’s culture, it’s economics, it’s policy, it’s ecology. There is a lot of quality journalism out there that doesn’t use the classic keywords, making it increasingly difficult to track using traditional methods. Researchers are working on using LLMs to get a more accurate sense of news topic volume.
I think volume studies are certainly provide useful information, and the fact that we have a 25+ year record thanks to the University of Colorado should be celebrated. Still, this data set should be considered within its limitations. At the end of the day, quality and impact matter more than volume. And how do you get quality and impact? By doing exceptional journalism in high-visibility venues.
This is why I’ll always focus more on the challenge of finding resources to allow news organizations to assign journalists to cover the beat. This is what will bring quality.
Oh, and quantity, too, if that’s your bag. After all, The New York Times created a climate desk just before its volume of climate stories began to seriously outpace its peers.
The Environmental Beat 