Last summer, during the deadliest wildfire season in California’s history, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes got into a revealing Twitter discussion about why US television doesn’t much cover climate change. Elon Green, an editor at Longform, had tweeted, “Sure would be nice if our news networks—the only outlets that can force change in this country—would cover it with commensurate urgency.” Hayes (who is an editor at large for The Nation) replied that his program had tried. Which was true: In 2016, All In With Chris Hayesspent an entire week highlighting the impact of climate change in the US as part of a look at the issues that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were ignoring. The problem, Hayes tweeted, was that “every single time we’ve covered [climate change] it’s been a palpable ratings killer. So the incentives are not great.” To view the full article visit The Nation.
