istolethetvA famous reporter.
Last week, we noted that the media seemed to be willing to talk climate change for once. And they were: BuzzFeed looks at how mentions of climate change in the media increased after Sandy.
A search of Nexis’s news database — including newspaper articles, online articles, and TV news transcripts — shows that before Sandy hit, climate change was rarely mentioned in reference to either President Obama or Mitt Romney. It received an average of 27 mentions [a day] before Oct. 29.
When Chuck Todd, anchor of MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown,” said on his show on Oct. 31 that Sandy was caused in part by climate change — “It’s called climate change, folks,” he said — reporters and pundits quickly picked up on the environmental issue as an election story.
By the time Mayor Bloomberg endorsed Obama on Nov. 1 as a “vote for a president to lead on climate change,” climate change reached 113 mentions in the news. The next day, it reached its peak — 169 mentions across print, web, and television.
Great! And then:
The issue has slid away from election news coverage just as rapidly as it made its entrance. In articles and television news segments Monday, climate change received just 57 mentions.
Aw. Well, maybe it will catch on after the next massive, deadly hurricane. Fingers crossed.
