Is there a climate change reporting bias? A case study of English-language news articles, 2017–2022

Abstract

Abstract. How weather hazards are communicated by the media is important. Which risks are understood, prioritized and acted upon can be influenced by the level of attention they receive. The presented work investigates whether or not the number of weather hazard news articles has increased since 2017, which weather hazards received the most attention in the news articles, and how often climate change was discussed in relation to weather hazards in these news articles. The methods used are advanced searches of Google and the Emergency Disaster Database (EM-DAT) for media articles considering weather hazards – specifically floods, heat waves, wildfires, storms and droughts – between 2017 and 2022. Results suggest that storms are more likely to be reported than any other climate risk, though wildfires generate more news articles per event. Bias in reporting needs to be addressed and is important, because it can exacerbate un-preparedness.