Climate Change Mentioned in Only 1 out of 20 Drought Stories in Australia

An analysis by media monitoring company Streem for The Guardian Australia has found that only 5.8 percent of news stories published in Australian media that mention the word “drought” also include a reference to climate change. The survey found that online and print news stories were a little more likely to mention both terms, while only one in forty TV and radio stories referenced both.

There is consensus among scientist that global climate change is making droughts in Australia and elsewhere in the world more severe. Australia is currently battling severe drought in the Murray-Darling river system in the South-Eastern part of the country.

The Guardian, which didn’t carry out the analysis but contracted it, was actually the source included in the survey that mentioned both terms in the same story most often. Still, it only did so in 38 percent of all cases. The analysis also found that mentions of financial relief were more common in connection to stories mentioning drought. The combination was found in 7.6 percent of stories. The same goes for mentions of Prime Minister Scott Morrison (6.4 percent) after he had taken office.