NBC host Chuck Todd received a Walter Cronkite Award for political journalism for an hour-long feature on climate change that excluded “climate deniers.”
The Norman Lear Center at the USC Annenberg School for Communication gave the award to Todd and his Sunday show “Meet The Press.” The hour-long special, titled “Climate Crisis,” featured experts and politicians who agree that human activity is driving the earth’s climate toward catastrophe.
“In an extraordinary move for a Sunday show, NBC’s Meet the Press moderated by Chuck Todd devoted an entire hour to the reality of climate change, rather than giving airtime to a fake equivalence between science and science deniers,” the Norman Lear Center said in a statement.
The featured guests discussed and debated actions and government policies that could curb man’s influence on climate. The special notably excluded any scientists or politicians who questioned the significance of humanity’s influence on the climate.
Judges for the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Television Political Journalism called the program “urgent and unprecedented” and a “breakthrough in issue coverage,” according to the Norman Lear Center.
Todd’s program aired Dec. 30, 2018.
“We’re going to take an in-depth look … at a literally Earth-changing subject that doesn’t get talked about this thoroughly — on television news, at least — climate change,” Todd said at the special’s open.
Todd continued:
“But just as important as what we are going to do this hour is what we’re not going to do. We’re not going to debate climate change, the existence of it. The earth is getting hotter. And human activity is a major cause, period. We’re not going to give time to climate deniers. The science is settled, even if political opinion is not. And we’re not going to confuse weather with climate. A heat wave is no more evidence that climate change exists than a blizzard means that it doesn’t, unless the blizzard hits Miami.”
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