On June 1st 2017, cable news networks invited experts onto their shows to discuss President Donald Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the international Paris Agreement on June 1. Research nonprofit Media Matters for America conducted a study showing that out of 286 guests, only 17 percent were people of color. Why is this lack of representation significant?
Communities of color are disproportionately impacted by climate change and the activities that contribute to it (such as fossil fuel extraction), and yet TV outlets have often failed to make connections between climate change and racial justice. Jacqueline Patterson, Senior Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program, pointed out in an interview with The Nation in 2014: “The voice of frontline communities, the ones that are most impacted, usually don’t make it to the airwaves.” Why do you think people of color and frontline communities are not often represented in media coverage as experts in climate change? What structural and social dynamics might be contributing to this issue of lack of representation?
Racism, sexism, and other structural forces produce hierarchies of expertise that shape whose knowledge counts. Someone’s words might be devalued due to the prejudices against the group(s) to which they belong. In other cases, a lack of access to resources might lead people to question their own competence to know something. These are all forms of epistemic injustice.
Snapshot: Media Coverage of Climate Change Experts (Read)