CBS’ leadership in broadcast news climate coverage is chipping away under Bari Weiss
WRITTEN BY ALLISON FISHER & EVLONDO COOPER
Excerpt: Now, tectonic shifts at the network, sparked by new ownership and Trump’s campaign targeting legacy media, means its leadership on climate coverage could be slipping away, with notable changes in tone and volume of coverage already underway. Even in 2025, as corporate broadcast news reporting on the climate crisis dropped to just over 8 hours — a significant decline from its 2022 zenith of nearly 23 hours — CBS still accounted for nearly half of that time. But the vast majority of its coverage aired before Bari Weiss was installed as its editor-in-chief, with only 20 minutes of climate coverage airing across 7 segments between Weiss’ takeover in October and the end of 2025.
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One segment about youth climate anxiety aired during the December 29 episode of CBS Evening News elevated and echoed right-wing media’s approach to minimizing climate risk by laundering a narrative long used to shift attention away from climate consequences and responsibility toward cultural debates about individual life choices.
In 2025, CBS aired 54 minutes of climate coverage in January, making it the network’s peak month. This year, the network aired only one climate segment in January — a headline report on the evening news lasting approximately 20 seconds on the surprising health of polar bears, despite the loss of sea ice, in the Norwegian Arctic. … The new study was also shared on climate denier Marc Morano’s site. With a seeming nod to the climate skeptic community, Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil concluded: “Experts say the bears are still in trouble long term, but hey, the experts have been wrong before.”
