Fox News
2009 Coverage
On December 15, 2010, MediaMatters released a Dec. 8, 2009 e-mail sent by Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon questioning the "veracity of climate change data" and ordering the network's journalists to "refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question."[1]
The directive was issued less than 15 minutes after Fox correspondent Wendell Goler accurately reported on-air that the United Nations' World Meteorological Organization announced that 2000-2009 was "on track to be the warmest [decade] on record."[2]
That night Fox’s flagship news program featured another report by Goler, quoting Michel Jarraud of the World Meteorological Association explaining the recent finding that 2000-2009 “is likely to be the warmest on the record.” Appearing to echo Sammon’s orders, Goler immediately followed this by saying that climate deniers "say the recordkeeping began about the time a cold period was ending in the mid 1800s and what looks like an increase may just be part of a longer cycle.” After running a clip of American Enterprise Institute scholar Kenneth Green questioning the “historical context” of the WMO’s climate findings, Goler then brought up the climategate emails, saying the "e-mails cast doubt on the basic scientific message."[3]
Later that night, on the same Special Report broadcast, correspondent James Rosen advanced the wildly misleading claim that climate scientists “destroyed more than 150 years worth of raw climate data.” A month after Sammon sent his memo, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies released data confirming that 2009 was the second warmest year on record and marked the end of the warmest decade on record. Special Report never mentioned the NASA report.[4]
2019 Coverage
Climate denial claims dominated 86% of climate change segments on Fox News this year, according to a new Public Citizen analysis.[5]
A review of Fox News programs for the first half of 2019 reveals that the network continues to give ample airtime to long-debunked climate myths and fringe deniers. Of Fox’s 247 segments that involved considerable discussion on the issue, 212 (86%) were dismissive of the climate crisis, cast warming and its consequences in doubt or employed fearmongering when discussing climate solutions.
Fox News programs had 10 contributors who commented on climate-related issues at least twice during the six-month period. None of these contributors is a climate scientist and none has appeared on another network.[6]
- ↑ http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2010/12/15/207201/leaked-email-fox-news-sammon-cast-doubt-on-climate-science/
- ↑ http://mediamatters.org/blog/201012150004
- ↑ http://climateprogress.org/2010/12/15/leaked-email-fox-news-sammon-cast-doubt-on-climate-science/
- ↑ https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Fox_News
- ↑ https://www.citizen.org/article/foxic-fox-news-networks-dangerous-climate-denial-2019/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=52dbcd4f-2756-4284-973a-7fe06c039cd5
- ↑ https://www.citizen.org/news/climate-change-denial-dominates-86-of-fox-news-climate-segments/