Peter Dykstra: Is CNN back in the game?

CNN was a leader in broadcast coverage of science and environment until Fox News came along to rule cable news. Now, years later, it looks like CNN may be back.

I used to oversee CNN's science and environment coverage in the 1990s up through 2008. Founder Ted Turner had insisted on an uncommonly strong effort on those beats.


We had fulltime correspondents for science and the environment.

We produced solid news stories, a couple of half-hour weekly shows, and an occasional special on things like the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. An hour-long piece on the 1993 Mississippi River floods, for example, won an Emmy.

The mid-2000's turned out to be a boom time for the beat(s), which in the perverse world of news almost always means someone is suffering: 2004 brought a ruinous Atlantic hurricane season, with four major storms crisscrossing Florida—Charlie, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne.

Year's end brought the Indian Ocean tsunami, with its horrific, six-figure death toll; and 2005 brought Katrina, which forever re-shaped our notion of the damage potential of extreme weather.

Our environment team also contributed a blog to CNN's growing web presence. Our blog grew to the network's fourth most-visited entry, exceeded only by the big-name blogs of Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer, and Lou Dobbs.

During that time, CNN saw its cable dominance eclipsed by Fox News. Every year or two, another CNN chief would vanish into the executive Bermuda Triangle, and the network reduced its staff by about 20 percent.

When the economy blew up in 2008, CNN made a decision that I've always regarded as being perfectly defensible from a business standpoint, but an awful one for journalism: If CNN's goal was to compete with Fox, CNN didn't need science and environment coverage.

Nearly a dozen of us were cut loose, and in doing so, CNN sent its staff a powerful message that pitching science and environment stories was no way to advance one's career.

Science and environment coverage languished. In the following years, content analysis from the liberal watchdog Media Matters for America showed paltry attention to climate change across all national TV entities.

CNN lagged behind its direct competitors at both MSNBC and Fox News – and the latter's climate coverage was almost all in the framework of climate denial.

Enter Jeff Zucker, former NBC CEO, in 2013. When asked the following year about the absence of climate coverage on the network, Zucker gave what I considered a refreshingly honest excuse.

"Climate change is one of those stories that deserves more attention, that we all talk about," Zucker said, "but we haven't figured out how to engage the audience in that story in a meaningful way. When we do do those stories, there does tend to be a tremendous amount of lack of interest on the audience's part."

Well, okay then.

In one terse statement, Zucker acknowledged evidence of a warming Earth and evidence that hell is freezing over due to a network boss being honest. Then he threw the audience under the bus.

Zucker's retained his CNN stripes for six years. To his credit, CNN emerged from its climate coma when Bill Weir joined the network less than a year after Zucker's arrival, building a series of visits to natural gems called "The Wonder List."

Much of his recent work has focused on the Trump Administration's regulatory purge. He carries the title of CNN's Chief Climate Correspondent. Here's a link to his recent stories.

John D. Sutter is a climate specialist for CNN Digital whose work often appears on the TV side, and Drew Griffin is an investigative reporter who's filing frequent environmental pieces.

But 2019 seems the year that Zucker's search for climate coverage is overtaking the rest of the network.

I watch more than the recommended daily allotment of CNN, and here's a slice of what I've seen in the past week or so on climate and environment:

These projects are significant on their own merits, but on TV, making the financial commitment stories in places like Greenland, Bristol Bay, Alaska, or the Sargasso Sea implies that the Executive Suite is taking it seriously.

I've been out of CNN for a decade, so I can't take credit for any of this. And I really don't want any credit for the incessant panel discussions of Donald Trump's latest Twitter eruptions.

But the climate/environment upswing is both welcome and long overdue.

I used to exhort our colleagues to produce news pieces that look smart on the day they run, and look even smarter 20 years later. The stuff we aired in 1999 meets that goal.

If today's CNN also complies with the 20-year standard, the world may still be going to hell in a handcart, but at least some journalists can say they've done their job.

Senator Whitehouse & climate change

Senator Whitehouse puts climate change on budget committee’s agenda

For more than a decade, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse gave daily warnings about the mounting threat of climate change. Now he has a powerful new perch.

Could giving youth a voice in politics help fix climate change?

‘Look at the mess we’re in — they’ll inherit this,’ says NDP MP Gord Johns.
Orphaned & inactive oil wells
Joseph Gage/Flickr/Commercial use & mods allowed

Orphaned oil wells are one problem; inactive wells are potentially much bigger

Crews plugged 100 orphaned oil wells last week, but even that rapid pace isn't enough to keep up with the problem in Louisiana.
seed diversity climate farming food
Photo by Anil Sharma on Unsplash

How seed diversity can help protect our food as the world warms

A new documentary explores the dangers that climate change poses to agriculture — and the seed savers who are working to make food systems more resilient.
charlottesville climate energy efficiency
Image by JamesDeMers from Pixabay

Community grants help Virginia small businesses trim energy costs – without the red tape

Charlottesville-based Community Climate Collaborative’s latest grant program is helping minority-owned small businesses pay for energy efficient appliances and lighting.

Jimmy Carter legacy on energy efficiency, environment, and climate

Carter was “the first president to pass a law on energy efficiency standards that had teeth,” says Jay Hakes, a former administrator of the Energy Information Administration and former director of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library.

‘Half-baked, half-hearted’: critics deride UK’s long-awaited climate strategy

The UK’s new energy plan unveiled on Thursday is a missed opportunity full of “half-baked, half-hearted” policies that do not go far enough to power Britain’s climate goals, according to green business groups and academics.

From our Newsroom
Partha Dasgupta economics of nature

An economist's 'answer to everything.' Hint: It takes nature

Economist Partha Dasgupta takes issue with our failure to account for the cost of Earth's destruction

oil and gas wells pollution

What happens if the largest owner of oil and gas wells in the US goes bankrupt?

Diversified Energy’s liabilities exceed its assets, according to a new report, sparking concerns about whether taxpayers will wind up paying to plug its 70,000 wells.

Paul Ehrlich

Paul Ehrlich: A journey through science and politics

In his new book, the famous scientist reflects on an unparalleled career on our fascinating, ever-changing planet.

oil and gas california environmental justice

Will California’s new oil and gas laws protect people from toxic pollution?

California will soon have the largest oil drilling setbacks in the U.S. Experts say other states can learn from this move.

Stay informed: sign up for The Daily Climate newsletter
Top news on climate impacts, solutions, politics, drivers. Delivered to your inbox week days.