Why is the US news media so bad at covering climate change?

The US news media devotes startlingly little time to climate change - how can newsrooms cover it in ways that will finally resonate with their audiences?This article is excerpted from a piece published by Columbia Journalism Review and the Nation. The Guardian is partnering with CJR and the Nation on a 30 April conference aimed at reframing the way journalists cover climate change. More information about the conference, including a link to RSVP, is here.Last summer, during the deadliest wildfire season in California's history, MSNBC's Chris Hayes got into a revealing Twitter discussion about why US television doesn't much cover climate change. Elon Green, an editor at Longform, had tweeted, "Sure would be nice if our news networks - the only outlets that can force change in this country - would cover it with commensurate urgency." Hayes (who is an editor at large for the Nation) replied that his program had tried. Which was true: in 2016, All In With Chris Hayes spent an entire week highlighting the impact of climate change in the US as part of a look at the issues that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were ignoring. The problem, Hayes tweeted, was that "every single time we've covered [climate change] it's been a palpable ratings killer. So the incentives are not great." Continue reading...