Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumCNN - 23.5 Minutes For American Petroleum Institute Ads, 5 Minutes For Climate Coverage
If you tuned into CNN earlier this year, when NASA And NOAA announced that 2015 was the hottest year on record, you werent likely to see much coverage of that announcement. In fact, you were more likely to see an ad for the fossil fuel industry than a news story on how fossil fuels are driving the planets warming, according to a new report.
The report, released Monday by Media Matters, looked at CNNs coverage in the one-week periods following the news that 2015 set the record for the worlds hottest year (January 20-26) and that February 2016 was the hottest February in 137 years of recordkeeping (March 17-23). It found that CNN spent nearly five times as much time airing fossil fuel industry advertisements in these two week-long periods than it did airing coverage of climate change and the recent records. The network spent 23.5 minutes on ads from the American Petroleum Institute, compared to five minutes spent on news coverage on climate change.
CNN spent less than one minute on coverage of Januarys hottest year announcement, but it spent 13.5 minutes in the morning, afternoon, and evening airing fossil fuel industry ads. Then, following the February announcement, CNN spent four minutes on climate-related coverage and 10 minutes airing fossil fuel ads. And this coverage didnt always mention climate change on March 18, CNN anchors Christine Romans and John Berman delivered nearly-identical reports on Februarys astounding temperature record during the 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. editions of Early Start, respectively, but neither explicitly mentioned climate change or the role fossil fuel pollution and other human activities play in driving climate change, the report notes.
In fact, according to the report, only one segment on the unusually high temperatures mentioned climate change. CNN didnt respond to a request for comment by press time.
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http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/04/26/3772816/cnn-climate-coverage-report/