Fox News

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Climate Denial

Year-By-Year

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]

2012 Coverage

An analysis of Fox primetime climate coverage from February-July 2012 conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that in 37 of 40 instances (over 90%), Fox News programs misled viewers about climate science—mainly, by broadly dismissing it.[5]

2019 Coverage

Climate denial claims dominated 86% of climate change segments on Fox News this year, according to a new Public Citizen analysis.[6]

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.[7]

Proven Impact

A 2019 Pew study found that “Republicans who watch Fox News are more than twice as likely to deny human-caused climate change than Republican non-viewers, and 62 percent of Republicans watch Fox News.”

Pew’s data also “suggests that the presence of Fox News and other conservative media outlets may be the primary explanation for why climate denial is more prevalent in the United States than in other developed countries.” That data mirrored the findings of a 2013 study, which noted that consuming Fox News and Rush Limbaugh made Americans significantly less likely to trust scientists or believe in climate change.[8]

Earlier in 2019, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reported on findings that showed rejection of climate science among ordinary people is especially American, and Fox News was a pivotal reason.[9]

Fox Weather

In 2021, Fox News announced its launch of Fox Weather, a new streaming platform aimed at competing with the Weather Channel.[10] Fox’s decision to double down on weather coverage after years of climate denial has been cited as a recent example of the network’s accelerating right-wing extremism.[11][12]

Sources

  1. ↑ http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2010/12/15/207201/leaked-email-fox-news-sammon-cast-doubt-on-climate-science/
  2. ↑ http://mediamatters.org/blog/201012150004
  3. ↑ http://climateprogress.org/2010/12/15/leaked-email-fox-news-sammon-cast-doubt-on-climate-science/
  4. ↑ https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Fox_News
  5. ↑ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/fox-news-distorts-climate-science/
  6. ↑ https://www.citizen.org/article/foxic-fox-news-networks-dangerous-climate-denial-2019/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=52dbcd4f-2756-4284-973a-7fe06c039cd5
  7. ↑ https://www.citizen.org/news/climate-change-denial-dominates-86-of-fox-news-climate-segments/
  8. ↑ https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2019/11/25/u-s-public-views-on-climate-and-energy/
  9. ↑ https://www.wgbh.org/news/commentary/2019/12/03/how-fox-news-is-helping-to-destroy-the-planet
  10. ↑ https://newrepublic.com/article/162923/fox-news-weather-channel-climate-denial
  11. ↑ https://newrepublic.com/article/162923/fox-news-weather-channel-climate-denial
  12. ↑ https://newrepublic.com/article/162693/brian-stelter-hoax-fox-news-big-lie
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