GR: So focused on our navels last year, we had no time for the building climate disaster. The Media Matters story below included fine graphics with full commentary. Here’s a sketch and some of the graphs. Once again, Bernie Sanders showed his broad perspective on critical issues. He brought up climate change four times as much as hosts did on ABC, CBS, and NBC Sunday shows. Mainstream media failed, but there was certainly good coverage of climate change across the Internet. I reported on it on this blog more than 200 times. Here’s an example (https://garryrogers.com/category/climate-change/). Other blogs have mentioned the poor 2016 coverage.

“In 2016, evening newscasts and Sunday shows on ABC, CBS, and NBC, as well as Fox Broadcast Co.’s Fox News Sunday, collectively decreased their total coverage of climate change by 66 percent compared to 2015, even though there were a host of important climate-related stories, including the announcement of 2015 as the hottest year on record, the signing of the Paris climate agreement, and numerous climate-related extreme weather events.

“There were also two presidential candidates to cover, and they held diametrically opposed positions on the Clean Power Plan, the Paris climate agreement, and even on whether climate change is a real, human-caused phenomenon.

“Apart from PBS, the networks also failed to devote significant coverage to climate-related policies, but they still found the time to uncritically air climate denial — the majority of which came from now-President Donald Trump and his team.” –Media Matters (Continue reading:  How Broadcast Networks Covered Climate Change In 2016.)

GR: Kate Yoder of Grist covered this story too:

“The networks can’t claim there was a shortage of important climate stories to cover. Hurricane Matthew, the Great Barrier Reef’s continued slow death, record-shattering heat, and the official beginning of the Paris climate deal all took place last year.

“Other insights from the study:

• “Together, the networks aired five segments of climate science denial from Trump and his team — without rebuttal.
• “No network covered climate change’s impact on national security or the economy.
• “And none of them aired a single segment on the effect a Trump or Clinton presidency would have on the climate — until after the election.

“Great to know that TV news is taking the defining issue of our time so seriously.” –Kate Yoder.