Communicating Climate Change in the Media

(Short form) Anthropogenic climate change has become less of a taboo topic for broadcast news stations nationwide in recent years, but what are the best practices for communicating such science-dense topics in a time-limited medium? A recent study suggests who the average TV viewers trust most for climate information, which topics are most confusing, and which topics they find most interesting. This information is beneficial to broadcast meteorologists and scientists being interviewed for a climate news piece on TV.

(Detailed form) Anthropogenic climate change has become less of a taboo topic for broadcast news stations nationwide in recent years. Station meteorologists are covering it more but without guidance on best practices for informing viewers. A recent study found best practices for clearly communicating human-influenced climate change in a news-timely manner. Its data was gathered via a survey that polled news viewers using multiple-choice and short-answer questions.

The study found recommended climate-related vocabulary terms and a solution to explaining such science-dense content under the tight timing requirements of broadcast news. The most confusing climate change topics that reporters should cover include climate variability, cyclical natural climate change, the difference between climate and weather, and what humans can do, to be the most confusing topics. The most important topics include the impacts on humans, the Earth, extreme storms/weather, and what humans should do about it. The study also suggests viewers trust the National Weather Service the most for human-influenced climate change information, followed by TV meteorologists and other scientists. It is also suggested to use digital mediums in an effort to expand upon climate stories that have to be shortened due to news time constraints.

This information is helpful for TV news broadcasters as we embark on this new chapter of communicating human-influenced climate change. Reporters and meteorologists can use this information to find sources for stories that the public trusts. College professors and state climatologists came in as some of the least trusted sources on the survey, which could be interpreted as a reason to increase the public perception of these scientists as good sources for this information. The topics misunderstood or cared about the most should be considered when choosing which stories to cover. All scientists can benefit from this information when being interviewed by a TV station.