Media coverage of climate infected by coronavirus

Chris Pash
By Chris Pash | 18 May 2020
 
Getty

The number of articles focused on climate change have hit 12-month lows in Australian media as coronavirus dominates the news cycle, according to analysis by real-time media montoring group Streem.

Stories mentioning climate change in metropolitan print and online titles fell below 1% in April for the first time in at least a year.

Climate coverage peaked during Australia’s bushfire crisis in January, being mentioned in 4.6% of stories.

But since then reporting has plummeted. The number of stories mentioning climate change in the first 100 words has fallen to 101 in April from 873 in January.

There were four times more COVID-19 stories in April than climate change articles in the past year, as this chart shows:

streem 1

Coronavirus coverage has reached unprecedented levels of media saturation, being mentioned in up to 80% of stories on some days in March.

Streem media analyst Conal Hanna says the coronavirus coverage was always going to impact the amount of media attention available for other topics.

However some issues have still managed to cut through in recent weeks.

"The George Pell verdict, the release of Malcolm Turnbull’s memoir and the ongoing discussion about football season resumptions are all topics that have generated considerable prominence in the media despite the pandemic," says Hanna.

"With coronavirus likely to be around for a considerable time to come, the challenge for climate change academics and activists will be how to wrest back some of the media’s attention."

climate streem

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