As US president Donald Trump continues to bar the Associated Press from the Oval Office and Air Force One for not mimicking his new name for the Gulf of Mexico, the press faces a defining challenge. Will news organizations defend the AP’s clear First Amendment right to report the news free of government interference, or not? If so, what form will such solidarity take?
The Reuters and Agence France-Presse news agencies, the AP’s two chief competitors, have issued public statements of support, as has The New York Times. An additional 40 news organizations — including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, the major US television networks, and even Trump boosters Fox News and Newsmax — have reportedly signed a letter from the White House Correspondents Association, urging that AP’s access be restored.
Jim Acosta, the former White House correspondent for CNN, has suggested a more aggressive approach. Interviewed on The MeidasTouch Podcast, which this month overtook The Joe Rogan Experience as the most popular podcast in the US —Acosta said the press corps should consider boycotting White House press opportunities. Trump “cares about having those cameras on him more than just about anything else in the world,” Acosta said. “If the press were to take those cameras away for a day or two, I think that there would be a lesson learned on his part. I think he would say, ‘Okay, maybe I ought to rethink this idea of kicking the Associated Press out of there if I can’t have cameras with me.’”
Trump’s insistence that he has the unilateral right to re-name the Gulf of Mexico is part of a larger effort to dictate what is and is not reality. “This is about the government telling the public and press what words to use and retaliating if they do not follow government orders,” AP spokesperson Lauren Easton said. In climate terms, a rough equivalent would be demanding that news reports stop saying that burning oil, gas, and coal is dangerously overheating Earth.
Trump went a big step further on Wednesday. Saying the quiet part out loud, he hailed himself as “The King” in a post about New York City’s traffic congestion pricing program. “The White House’s official X account reposted Trump’s announcement with a mock Time Magazine cover depicting the president wearing a crown” above the title, “Long Live The King,” The Daily Beast reported.
Journalists, and the world, stand at an unprecedented moment in the climate story. From the time climate change irreversibly entered the public agenda in the late 1980s, the US has been the world’s leading climate polluter. The US earned this distinction in part because it is history’s biggest climate polluter: Today, its cumulative greenhouse gas emissions still exceed China’s. Meanwhile, its political, economic, and military power has given it unmatched influence over what the world as a whole can do about climate change. US diplomats could decisively strengthen or weaken what got decided at UN climate summits, for example.
Throughout these 30-plus years, the US has had Republican presidents and Democratic presidents. But there has never been a president remotely like Trump, in either his approach to the climate issue or to public discourse.
How journalism should cover Trump and climate change was the subject of a Talking Shop webinar CCNow hosted this week. The questions tackled by journalists Jael Holzman, Dr. Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson, and Bill McKibben included:
- How should journalism, whose very DNA includes respect for verifiable facts, report on a president who either doesn’t know or doesn’t care what the facts are, and whose discourse is therefore littered with dangerously false statements (e.g., climate change “is a hoax”)?
- How does journalism deal with the fact that Trump is brazenly violating the law — most plainly, by refusing to release funds that Congress has ordered spent?
- Faced with Trump’s long-time strategy of relentlessly “flooding the zone” with outlandish remarks, how can journalists stay focused on our civic responsibility to inform the public and hold government to account?
CCNow encourages journalists everywhere to think and talk about these challenges, both among ourselves and with the public — the people we report to and for. There are no easy answers. But it seems clear that, in retaliating against the AP, Trump is acting, as he often does, like a bully. And not standing up to a bully only invites further abuse.
From Us
LAST CHANCE: Sign up for CCNow training. Journalists working for CCNow partner outlets can now apply to receive free, hands-on training in small-group workshops. Apply no later than Wednesday, February 26.
Prep Your Climate Coverage: Spring Weather. On Wednesday, February 26, join Covering Climate Now and Climate Central for the first session of a new webinar series that will prepare North American journalists to cover severe seasonal weather. Learn more and register.
Free access to AFP climate news feed. CCNow and Agence France-Presse are partnering to offer media outlets from Latin America, Africa, and Asia free access to approximately 150 ready-to-publish articles every month, complete with photos, videos, or infographics. Apply before March 11.
Climate at the Border. In March, CCNow will kick off a free, in-depth training and collaborative reporting effort to strengthen climate journalism along the US-Mexico border. Climate at the Border will provide journalists in the region, on both sides of the border, with the tools and confidence to cover urgent challenges facing local communities. Learn more and apply by February 28, or send questions to training@coveringclimatenow.org.
The 89 Percent Project. Early this month, CCNow announced a year-long effort to shine light on the fact that a huge majority of the global population want their governments to “do more” to fix climate change, even in this fraught political moment. We’ll kick off with a coverage event this April; we invite newsrooms and journalists everywhere to join us. Learn more.
Locally Sourced newsletter. The latest edition of our biweekly newsletter for local journalists looks at cold snaps, which, despite the climate skepticism they seem to invite, may actually be the result of climate change, according to the latest research. Check out the Locally Sourced archive and sign up to get it every other Tuesday.
Noteworthy Stories
Fire feeds on careless deeds. As wildfires become more frequent and dangerous, Trump has repeatedly called on communities to clear forests of undergrowth and debris; “it’s called management of the floor,” he said in Los Angeles in January. Yet his slash and burn approach to federal agencies and programs has cut off funding meant for that exact purpose. By Claire Rush, Matthew Brown, and Chris Megerian for the Associated Press…
Drill what? Trump has vowed to “unleash” American energy, in large part by doubling down on oil production — while also pausing federal funding for clean energy projects nationwide — but the economic and geological facts on the ground point to US oil production’s inevitable flattening and decline. “We’re 17, 18 years into the U.S. shale story,” one Texas-based researcher said. “It does have an end.” By Mike Soraghan for Politico’s E&E News…
NOAA and the Palmetto State. South Carolina’s late Senator Fritz Hollings was instrumental to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s establishment in 1970. Now, with the agency in Trump’s and Elon Musk’s crosshairs, the stakes are high for the state, where NOAA provides jobs, data, weather forecasting, and more, in addition to playing a critical role in city protection and coastal conservation efforts. By Toby Cox for Charleston’s Post and Courier…
El poder del pueblo. Mexico’s lagging efforts to curb climate change earn the country a “critically insufficient” rating from the independent nonprofit Climate Action Tracker. Yet there are actions that concerned, everyday Mexicans can take, such as investing in local climate movements and solutions. The southwestern community of Huatulco, in Oaxaca, serves up one shining example of what locals can achieve. By Tree Meinch for Yale Climate Connections…
Antarctic climate bomb. A team of Spanish researchers set out to Antarctica with a hypothesis, that the region’s rapidly warming climate might be exposing methane that’s been frozen for tens of thousands of years — “like ice that you could set on fire and it would burn,” scientists explain — that now is turning into methane gas. They found what they feared: enormous columns of methane gas leaking into the atmosphere, with the potential for further leaks amounting to the sum total of what humanity emits over two years. By Manuel Ansede for El País…
“Everything we had floated away.” Four months after Hurricane Helene’s devastation, swaths of southern Appalachia remain in ruin, with so many homes, vehicles, and more still overturned or “jammed lopsided in mud,” if not missing altogether. Faith in government is low, and indeed help has been slow in coming, leaving many community residents turning to each other. “People in this region will always think about life before Hurricane Helene and after,” said one organizer supporting recovery efforts. “This was southern Appalachia’s Katrina.” By Nina Lakhani for the Guardian…
Resources, Events, Etc.
Mapping America’s missing climate and clean energy billions. Nearly $700 billion in funding for climate and clean energy projects was made available by the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act and bipartisan infrastructure law. But only some of that money was spent, before the Trump administration put a stop to the funding. Grist has a tool for tracking down all the climate and infrastructure projects across the country that were announced but whose future is now uncertain. “Enter a ZIP code, city name, or other location in the search box below to discover projects within any radius of your chosen area.” By Clayton Aldern, for Grist…
- … and check out Grist’s story about the same, by Jake Bittle.
Mapping global crop destruction. Extreme heat, drought, floods, cyclones, and more have taken an enormous toll on agriculture and, in turn, the world’s food systems. Analyzing hundreds of news reports from throughout 2023 and 2024, Carbon Brief produced an interactive map to show the effects of disasters across geographic regions. The map includes links to original media reports, by a wide variety of outlets, and serves up a trove of opportunities for follow-up reporting. By Orla Dwyer, with Tom Prater, for Carbon Brief…
Journalist input needed! The Reynolds Journalism Institute and The Open Notebook are at work on “an interactive guide to equip journalists to evaluate scientific claims and incorporate science terms, concepts, perspectives, and issues in their reporting.” They’re asking journalists to complete a survey to help them shape the resource to journalists’ needs and demands. Complete the survey.
Narratives and climate solutions. On February 26, at 12pm US Eastern Time (5pm GMT), the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication will host a webinar, “The Power of Narrative: How Storytelling Can Amplify Climate Solutions,” to explore how to “[elevate] effective climate solutions, counter defeatist narratives, engage diverse audiences, and help people connect individual and collective actions to broader change.” (Panelists include longtime CCNow friend and co-chair of our steering committee, Dr. Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson.)
Jobs, Opportunities, Etc.
National outlets. The AP is hiring a “climate choices” reporter (any US city) and two climate social video producers (one in New York and one in New York, D.C., or LA). The New York Times is hiring a climate adaptation reporter (D.C.); and the Times’s Wirecutter is hiring an emergency preparedness staff writer. The Washington Post is hiring a health and science editor (apply by February 27, D.C.).
Local outlets. VTDigger is hiring an environmental reporter, who will also instruct the University of Vermont’s Community News Service. WBUR Boston is hiring a City Hall reporter. The Seattle Times is hiring a government and politics editor. The Baltimore Banner is hiring a reporter to cover Baltimore County, Md. The Modesto FOCUS, part of the Central Valley Journalism Collaborative, is hiring an accountability reporter (Modesto, Calif.).
Internships, etc. Reuters is hiring a climate science fellow (New York, apply by February 28). Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy is accepting applications for its 2025 Energy Journalism Fellows program, an in-person program in New York that will take place from June 10-13 (apply by March 3). Scientific American is hiring a news intern and a graphics intern (both New York, apply by March 21).
The Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder is accepting applications for its Ted Scripps Fellowship program, a yearlong program during which fellows will “deepen your understanding of environmental issues, hone your craft, and enjoy a break from deadlines while living at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.” The deadline is March 1. Learn more and apply.
The USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism is accepting applications for grants, between $2,000 and $10,000, to support “ambitious investigative or explanatory projects on systemic racism in public health, health care policy and the practice of medicine.” The deadline is March 26. Learn more and apply.
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