Not only did the broadcast networks spent more time on the People’s Climate March, than the March for Life, they portrayed it positively, ignoring all the radicalism promoted by participants.
NBC “Nightly News,” ABC “World News Tonight” on Sept. 21 and CBS “This Morning” and ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Sept. 22 gave a combined 3 minutes and 27 seconds to the climate march. That was four-and-a-half times the 46 seconds of stories that NBC and ABC evening news shows gave to the March for Life in January 2014.
Boosting the claims of protesters concerned about global warming, “World News Tonight” and “Nightly News” mentioned a recent statement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) saying the summer of 2014 was the “warmest summer on Earth” on record. Neither pointed out that record keeping only dates back to 1880. That’s just a tiny fraction of Earth’s history after all.
“World News Tonight” exaggerated the information even further by claiming 2014 is on track to the be the “hottest year ever.”
Nothing was said on any of the network news’ programs about how far people traveled by fossil fuel guzzling cars or airplanes to march in New York City on Sept. 21. The hypocrisy of expending massive amounts of greenhouse gases in order to call for an end to fossil fuels was ignored, although green celebrity Al Gore and the UN’s Ban-Ki Moon were both mentioned by name on “Nightly News.”
Actor Mark Ruffalo, an Occupy Wall Street supporter and fracking opponent, said criticizing people like Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio for their carbon emissions is wrong. When Climate Depot asked him about their carbon footprints, Ruffalo said, “Oh brother. That is a question you shouldn’t be asking here today because that defies the spirit of what this is about,” [1]
The networks also ignored protesters’ calls for “revolution” and a new society as well as the many socialist groups [2], including Communist Party USA and Occupy groups, that backed the protests.
According to Climate Depot, socialism was promoted by speakers at the march and applauded [3] by attendees of the People’s Climate March. Socialist literature was readily available.
During the march, Climate Depot interviewed environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who complained about global warming skeptics saying, “I wish there were a law you could punish them with. I don’t think there is a law that you can punish those politicians under.”
— Julia A. Seymour is Assistant Managing Editor for MRC Business at the Media Research Center. Follow Julia A. Seymour on Twitter. [4]