Join us next week for CCNow’s Climate on the Ballot Summit, a three-day virtual conference about the challenges and opportunities of integrating climate into elections coverage.
Even before Tuesday’s debate between Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the term “sane-washing” was attracting attention among journalists frustrated with media coverage of the former president. On September 4, The New Republic published an article by Parker Molloy contending that news outlets have been “sanitizing Donald Trump’s incoherent ramblings to make them more palatable for the average voter.” For example, Molloy wrote, when Trump said children were getting gender-transition surgeries at school without parents’ knowledge, a “glowing piece” in The New York Times “didn’t even mention the moment where he blathered on and on about a crazy conspiracy that has and will never happen.”
The very next day, Trump furnished smoking-gun evidence of Molloy’s point. Asked “what specific piece of legislation” he would advance as president to make childcare affordable, Trump wandered through one incomplete, off-topic sentence after another, never naming a single policy. The Times, too, responded as if scripted, blandly describing Trump’s word-salad as “a jumbled and meandering answer, Mr. Trump said he would commit to legislation but did not offer a specific plan.”
The following day, after tweeting that sane-washing had become his new favorite word, climate journalist Bill McKibben applied a similar critique to Trump’s utterances on climate change. Writing in the Guardian, McKibben quoted the former president verbatim and at length from a conversation on a recent podcast show. In a mish-mash of bizarre non-sequiturs, Trump asserted that global warming was renamed “climate change” because Earth was actually cooling, that climate scientists had been poor school students, that seas will rise a quarter of an inch in 500 years, and that the real problem is “nuclear warming.”
Trump’s remarks were nothing less than “gibberish,” McKibben observed. But it was dangerous gibberish, the journalist added, because Trump’s “friends at Project 2025 have laid out in considerable detail how you translate that gibberish into policy” that would “bolster oil, gas and coal” when humanity is already “on the edge of breaking the planet’s climate system.”
At Tuesday’s debate, only one question was asked specifically about climate change. (Neither the moderators nor the candidates made the climate connection to separate exchanges about fracking.) Noting that Trump has called climate change “a hoax,” Harris touted the Biden administration’s clean energy investments and, contradictorily, its “historic” increase in gas production. Trump said not a word about climate. As with his childcare answer a few days earlier, he unleashed a torrent of unrelated, dubious points that left the question unanswered.
Because the debate was televised, ordinary people could see Trump first hand and draw their own conclusions. Most of the time, though, the public’s impression of any politician is filtered through media reports. In a democracy, journalists are paid by our employers, but we work for the public. Voters deserve plain-spoken reporting about all candidates, especially about an issue as urgent as the climate emergency. Sane-washing is not part of our job description.
From Us
Next week! Join us next week for the Climate on the Ballot Summit. Over three days — through panels, workshops, and more — we’ll dig into the challenges and opportunities of integrating climate change in elections reporting. RSVP here:
- “The Stakes vs. The Horse Race” on Tuesday, Sept. 17, 12pm ET
- “The World’s Climate Elections” on Wednesday, Sept. 18, 9am ET
- “The State & Local Climate Election” on Wednesday, Sept. 18, 12pm ET
- “Interview with John Podesta” on Thursday, Sept. 19, 11am ET
We’ll also host journalist-only roundtable discussions on Tuesday, Sept. 17, and Wednesday, Sept. 18., to hone in on specific aspects of each day’s theme. Each roundtable is limited to 12 participants. Reserve your spot.
CCNow newsmaker interview with Jane Fonda! CCNow partners CBS, the Guardian, and Rolling Stone magazine have interviewed activist and actor Jane Fonda. Assets from the interview will be available to partner outlets via the CCNow Sharing Library. Interested in taking advantage of CCNow newsmaker interviews but your news outlet isn’t a partner? Get in touch with us via partners@coveringclimatenow.org or apply here.
Noteworthy Stories
Climate-disaster president. Though the US presidential candidates made little mention of climate during Tuesday’s debate, there’s no doubt “the next president will be a climate-disaster president.” With 20 climate disasters in the US so far this year, addressing climate is not a question of if, but when and how. By Zoë Schlanger for The Atlantic…
Climate litigation. Twenty-one youth activists have revived a lawsuit against US federal and state governments for authorizing fossil fuel extraction despite knowing about its “catastrophic” climate impacts. The case, one of the first of its kind, argues that US energy policies have violated plaintiffs’ rights to due process and protection from climate change. By Nate Raymond for Reuters…
Crackdown on protest. Wealthy nations in the Global North are using harsher measures to punish and preempt climate activism within their borders while criticizing governments in developing countries for suppressing free speech, finds a new Climate Rights International report. Instead of taking urgent action to stop climate change, the US, UK, and many countries in Europe are attacking peaceful protest, slapping longer prison sentences on climate activists, and using arrest as a method of deterrence. By Matthew Taylor for the Guardian…
Rising methane emissions. Methane emissions are rising globally with “no hint of decline,” according to a new study by the Global Carbon Project. The majority of countries have pledged to slash methane by 30% by 2030. This Q&A with the study’s lead author includes an effective explainer about methane, a greenhouse gas that’s 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide (although it fades faster in the atmosphere) and which is responsible for about 0.5 degrees Celsius of global heating. Read the Q&A at Carbon Brief…
Fracking explainer. Politico explores basic questions about the drilling technique fracking and its relevance to the 2024 presidential election. Why is fracking such a hot topic in this campaign? Could a president actually ban the practice? And do Pennsylvanians really care about fracking? All that and more in this primer by Ben Lefebvre for Politico…
Food solutions. How and what we eat is impacted by and a contributor to climate change. NPR has curated a list of podcasts to help audiences understand how eating lower on the food chain reduces your carbon footprint, ancient farming practices to protect crops from rising seas, how food connects us to our past and each other, and more. Browse the list on NPR…
Resources & Events
The World Resources Institute will host a webinar, “Understanding the Role of Carbon Dioxide Removal in Long-term Climate Planning,” on September 17, 10–11:30am US Eastern Time.
The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the Yale School of the Environment’s Climate Learning Community are hosting “An Evening with Luisa Neubauer,” starting at 6pm US Eastern Time on September 18. The German climate activist and politician will speak with Sena Wazer, a student at Yale’s School of the Environment.
Climate Week NYC has published its calendar of in-person, hybrid, and virtual events, running from September 22–29.
The Uproot Project, in partnership with Solutions Journalism Network, is hosting “Climate Solutions Journalism Training,” on September 24, 3pm US Eastern Time.
The Walkley Foundation is hosting a webinar, “Refresh your climate coverage!,” and CCNow’s deputy director, Andrew McCormick, will be speaking. September 25, 10–11am AEST.
Extreme heat guide. Explore the Global Investigative Journalism Network’s new “Guide to Investigating Extreme Heat,” which dives into different ways journalists can approach the extreme heat story — from exploring the health consequences to how labor conditions are impacted. The guide has plenty of examples to show you how it’s done.
Jobs, Etc.
NBC Connecticut is hiring a Meteorologist (Hartford, Conn.). CBS Miami is seeking an experienced Meteorologist to join their NEXT Weather team (Miami, Fla.). CBS News and Stations is hiring an Off-Air Meteorologist (New York, N.Y.). The Baltimore Banner is recruiting an Environment and Climate Reporter (Baltimore, Md.).
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