Looking past a hot story

Climate angles are everywhere and touch every story nowadays — war in the Middle East, public health, flooding or energy prices, to name just a few. Yet some people who do and follow climate journalism are concerned that it has lost ground as a coverage area.

“Scientists are pretty sure that Earth is hotter than at any time in the last 125,000 years, but the news media is moving on, trying to keep on top of a fire hose of pressing news — from the daily chaos of the Trump administration to the breaking developments in the war on Iran,” Kate Yoder wrote recently for Grist, a nonprofit that covers climate change.

The global journalism collaborative Covering Climate Now also recently wrote about the trend, citing layoffs that included climate teams at The Washington Post, CBS, NBC and ABC. It cited a number of reasons for the backslide, including the notion that “newsrooms grew bored of the story.”

“We see this story as one of the richest, most pressing on Earth. Yet we increasingly hear reporters tell us their newsroom bosses see the story as stale, played out, predictable,” the group wrote. It did note some exceptions, citing The Guardian, The New York Times, the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and CNN.

Some climate journalists have gone independent, either through frustration or because they’ve lost their jobs. Emily Atkin, who has a podcast called Heated, recently interviewed another journalist, Chase Cain, a former NBC reporter and meteorologist who recently decided to strike out on his own.

“It just really got to that point where I was just kind of exhausted by the sales, by the constant trying to explain and remind, like, hey, this is important. Please run this story,” Cain told Heated. “It just wore on me after a while.”

News In Focus
Headlines, resources and events aligned with API’s four areas of focus.

Civic Discourse & Democracy

>> National parks employees say SFGATE has been blacklisted (SFGATE)

SFGATE’s bureau that covers national parks was not getting answers to any of the questions it posed to the National Park Service. Turns out the public information officers had been told not to respond “in any way” to the outlet’s inquiries, writes Ashley Harrell, the bureau chief. A former parks service director said the policy reflects “a new era of message control.”

>> US downgraded in democracy index as press freedom concerns grow (CNN)

One of the world’s top democracy researchers said freedom of expression is now “at its lowest level since the end of WWII,” writes Brian Stelter. “The speed with which American democracy is currently dismantled is unprecedented in modern history,” said the Varieties of Democracies Institute.

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Culture & Inclusion

>> MuckRack’s State of Journalism 2026

MuckRack’s survey, designed to better understand the current state of journalism and how journalists view their work, explores the challenges they face, their use of AI and social media and how they choose what to write about. In one finding, MuckRack says the emotional picture is mixed. “Most journalists say their work feels meaningful, but nearly half say it’s exhausting.”

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Community Engagement & Trust

>> The Associated Press, with long ties to print, ramps up live-streamed video shows (Variety) 

The Associated Press is doing more video live-streaming at events like the State of the Union or red-carpet events like the Grammys, putting its journalists out front as part of an effort to “cultivate a direct-to-consumer segment that can watch video via YouTube, creating new revenue,” writes Brian Steinberg.

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Revenue & Resilience

>> The stubborn billionaire behind the L.A. Times’s revamp (The Wall Street Journal) 

Alexandra Bruell profiles L.A. Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong and his ambitions for the paper — as well as the challenges he faces. The billionaire pharmaceutical entrepreneur expects the Times’s core news business to break even in 2026. “Sadly I recognized it wasn’t going to be the most massive business,” he told Bruell, but added that he thinks it can be sustainable.

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What else you need to know

💸 Andy Lack to invest $7M in nonprofit journalism (Axios)

📰 Pittsburgh City Paper to relaunch under new ownership  (TribLive)

🤳Meta will pay Instagram, TikTok and YouTube creators with big followings to post on Facebook (CNBC)

📺 Eight states, DirectTV sue to block Nexstar’s plan to acquire rival Tegna (Reuters)

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Weekend reads

+ The decay of American journalism in a disinformation age (The New Republic)

+ Why — and how — academics should talk with journalists (Inside Higher Ed)

+ ‘A particular kind of masochistic joy’: Jelani Cobb on what it feels like to be a journalist (Depth Perception)

+ How Will Lewis lost the Washington Post (Washingtonian)