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Thursday, July 22nd, 2021

Bezos’ Space Stunt Got Almost as Much TV Time as Climate Crisis in All of 2020

Author:     Sharon Zhang
Source:     truthout
Publication Date:     July 21, 2021
 Link: Bezos’ Space Stunt Got Almost as Much TV Time as Climate Crisis in All of 2020
Stephan:   I have two reactions to the Bezos space trip: First, I think it is an obscene example of American wealthy inequality. Forty percent of American families would be pressed to write a $400 check, while a couple of men are so rich they can have their own space programs. Second, it provides irrefutable data showing that the media simply does not understand the implications of climate change, or doesn't want to lose the advertising revenue from the corporations that are creating climate change.

Broadcast news networks are notoriously bad at covering the climate crisis, dedicating a vanishingly small amount of airtime — year after year — to the grave existential threat despite the many potential stories they could be running about it.

Their neglect of the climate crisis is on stark display in a new statistic: According to Media Matters for America, morning TV shows spent nearly as much time on Jeff Bezos’s space launch on July 20, 2021 as they did on the climate crisis in all of 2020.

The morning shows on broadcast networks combined spent 212 minutes covering Bezos’s space trip just on Tuesday alone, Media Matters researchers found. Meanwhile, in the entirety of last year, the shows spent a combined 267 minutes on the climate crisis.

Bezos’s space trip was 11 minutes long. By contrast, the climate crisis has been ongoing for decades and daily threatens the fabric of our society and the continued existence of our species, if it continues unabated.

Further, Bezos’s trip to space was largely a PR stunt, meant to garner excitement around the billionaire and his space company while also buying fawning coverage from […]

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