NBC News is set to break its record of climate change coverage by a landslide — not that that's saying much.
The network announced Monday that it has created a "Climate Unit" for reporting environmental stories and will be hosting a week of climate-focused topics starting on Sunday, Sept. 15. It will feature correspondents reporting environmental and climate stories from around the world, full hours of coverage on MSNBC opinion shows, and its previously promised two-night forum on climate change with 2020 presidential candidates.
For its first venture under the Climate Unit, NBC News' flagship reporters Al Roker and Lester Holt will report on how climate change is affecting Greenland and Alaska, respectively. MSNBC's Chris Hayes and Ali Velshi will meanwhile moderate the two-day town hall on Sept. 19 and 20, which will put "2020 presidential candidates in conversation with young voters on climate issues," a press release says.
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Cable news networks' failure to focus on climate change became disturbingly obvious at the start of this year after Media Matters found networks barely covered the issue last year. And by barely, that means ABC News had a total of 10 minutes of coverage throughout all of 2018. In fact, it looks like just one day of the NBC News climate forum will beat out its 2018 total of 78 minutes spent on climate change.
NBC News' programming comes after CNN hosted a 7-hour town hall on the climate crisis featuring 10 of the remaining 2020 Democratic candidates. CNN's next single-issue venture will be a town hall focused on LGBTQ issues.
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