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In A Nutshell
- Roughly two-thirds of TV information segments about local weather change by no means point out local weather coverage in any respect, a spot which will assist clarify why most Americans underestimate how broadly supported these insurance policies really are.
- Fox News was the one community within the examine the place opposition to local weather coverage outweighed help, with simply 6% of related segments expressing a good view; NCS, CBS, and PBS every topped 95% favorable.
- Frequent Fox News viewers have been consuming predominantly essential local weather coverage protection, whereas viewers who not often watched Fox have been seeing protection that was virtually completely supportive.
- Overall, TV information didn’t present combination bias in opposition to local weather coverage when in comparison with public opinion, suggesting the misperception drawback runs deeper than media protection alone.
Most Americans do not know what number of of their fellow residents really help local weather motion, and a brand new examine suggests tv information could assist clarify a part of that hole, particularly for viewers of some networks.
Research printed within the journal Environmental Research Communications discovered that whereas U.S. tv information, taken as an entire, presents a roughly truthful image of public opinion on local weather coverage, that big-picture stability conceals one thing much more telling beneath. Individual networks are deeply polarized. Fox News skews closely in opposition to local weather coverage. NCS, MSNBC, CBS, and PBS skew closely in favor of it. Depending on the place an individual will get their information, they might be residing in a completely completely different data actuality.
Researchers analyzed greater than 2,000 information transcripts from seven main networks, ABC, CBS, NCS, Fox News, MSNBC, NBC, and PBS, collected between April 2020 and April 2021, to know whether or not protection pretty mirrored how the American public really feels about local weather insurance policies.
Two-Thirds of Climate News Coverage Never Mentions Climate Policy
Perhaps probably the most revealing discovering within the examine has nothing to do with bias. It’s about absence. Roughly two-thirds of all local weather change information segments examined made no point out of climate policy in any way. Importantly, the overwhelming majority of these transcripts by no means addressed how in style these insurance policies really are. Researchers decided that by evaluating the tone of protection in opposition to actual public polling, not by monitoring whether or not TV anchors talked about survey numbers.
This issues as a result of surveys constantly present that many climate insurance policies get pleasure from broad public help, in some circumstances from two-thirds or extra of Americans. Yet analysis has discovered that almost all Americans dramatically underestimate how in style these insurance policies are, typically by 20 proportion factors or extra. If tv information not often discusses coverage in any respect, that hole in public consciousness begins to make extra sense.
When particular insurance policies have been mentioned, the examine’s time-frame, spanning the 2020 presidential election and the early months of the Biden administration, helps clarify why protection of govt actions dominated. Renewable vitality and greenhouse fuel discount tended to obtain favorable protection. The Green New Deal drew probably the most detrimental remedy of any coverage class, with opposition outpacing help in transcripts that talked about it.
Fox News vs. NCS: A Climate Policy Divide on Television News
When researchers checked out particular person networks, the divide was fairly clear. Among transcripts that expressed both help or opposition to local weather coverage, greater than 95% of segments on NCS, CBS, and PBS expressed help. On Fox News, solely about 6% expressed help, making it the one community within the examine the place opposition outweighed help.
NBC and ABC landed within the center, with roughly 75% to 80% of their policy-related segments expressing help for local weather motion.
Fox News and NCS additionally stood out as the 2 networks that talked about local weather coverage most ceaselessly. NCS accounted for 44.3% of all policy-related transcripts within the examine, and Fox News contributed 25.8%. Those two networks, regardless of sitting at reverse ends of the spectrum, are driving a lot of the local weather coverage dialog on television, simply in utterly reverse instructions.
Coverage of the Green New Deal illustrated this clearly. Fox News accounted for greater than half of all Green New Deal mentions within the dataset, and people mentions have been predominantly detrimental. NCS led on most different coverage classes.
Climate Policy News and the Problem of Selective Viewing
Because most individuals don’t watch each channel equally, the researchers took a further step. They matched their transcript evaluation with self-reported media-diet knowledge from 5,375 survey respondents, permitting them to estimate the sort of local weather coverage protection every particular person was seemingly uncovered to primarily based on their very own reported viewing habits.
On common, folks’s media diets leaned towards protection that was supportive of local weather coverage. But that common masked a large break up. Viewers who not often or by no means watched Fox News have been consuming protection that was overwhelmingly favorable, typically approaching 100% supportive. Viewers who ceaselessly watched Fox News have been consuming protection that was predominantly essential. Not each American is watching the identical information, and it reveals.
Why Americans Still Underestimate Climate Policy Support
Most Americans consider local weather insurance policies are far much less in style than they really are. Researchers went on the lookout for whether or not biased TV protection may clarify that hole, and the reply turned out to be extra sophisticated than anticipated.
On the entire, they didn’t discover proof that tv information, in combination, underrepresents public help for local weather coverage. So broad media bias alone doesn’t look like the first cause Americans underestimate what number of of their fellow residents help local weather motion. Outlet-level polarization should be an element, as Fox News viewers present increased charges of misperception, in line with that community’s closely oppositional protection. The researchers additionally level to a different potential rationalization, noting that folks are inclined to assume Americans are extra politically divided than they really are on many points, which leads them to underestimate the true stage of help for in style insurance policies.
What an individual watches more and more determines what model of local weather actuality they obtain. Add up all of the networks and the system could look roughly balanced, however the expertise for particular person Americans can look very completely different relying on which channel is on.
Disclaimer: This article relies on an observational examine analyzing tv information transcripts from a selected one-year interval. The findings mirror associations between network-level protection patterns and self-reported viewing habits, and don’t set up that any community straight causes viewers to carry specific beliefs about local weather coverage. Readers are inspired to seek the advice of the unique analysis for full methodology and context.
Paper Notes
Limitations
Every transcript was handled equally within the evaluation, although the real-world impression of a information phase varies relying on elements like size, timeliness, and the way attention-grabbing the content material was. The examine additionally depends on self-reported knowledge from viewers about what information they devour, and analysis has proven that folks’s stories of their very own media habits don’t at all times match their precise viewing habits. Additionally, the examine solely examined transcripts that explicitly used the phrases “climate change” or “global warming,” which implies protection of climate-related insurance policies framed round vitality, infrastructure, or the financial system was not captured. Social media, native tv information, and different specialised retailers have been additionally not included. The researchers additionally notice that media protection each displays and shapes public opinion in methods which can be troublesome to totally untangle.
Funding and Disclosures
Lead creator Ekaterina Landgren was supported by the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences Visiting Fellows Program, funded by NOAA Cooperative Agreement NA22OAR4320151. The Institute of Behavioral Science on the University of Colorado Boulder offered help for interdisciplinary analysis and undergraduate analysis help. The authors declare no battle of curiosity.
Publication Details
Authors: Ekaterina Landgren (Stanford University / University of Colorado Boulder), Jeremiah Osborne-Gowey (Texas A&M University), Joshua Garland (Arizona State University), Maxwell Boykoff (University of Colorado Boulder), and Matthew G. Burgess (University of Wyoming) | Journal: Environmental Research Communications, Volume 8, 2026, Article 051016 | Paper Title: “U.S. television news coverage of climate change policy is aggregately balanced but polarized” | DOI: 10.1088/2515-7620/ae6b10 | Published: May 19, 2026