The increasing intensity of wildfires and hurricanes signal the reality of climate change, drawing media coverage that could capture the attention of policymakers. In a computational content analysis of 8906 news articles from four national newspapers, we compare coverage of wildfires and hurricanes in the U.S. from 2016 to 2021 examining volume and references to climate change, policy, and politicization. Our findings show patterns that provide new insight into how media may impact policymaking addressing climate change challenges. We find greater mentions of climate change in wildfire news coverage, suggesting that journalists more often associate wildfires with climate change than hurricanes. Volumetric data suggest a potential normalization effect implying decreased media attention of these events could reduce support for subsequent policy action. Overall, however, we do not see evidence that wildfires and hurricanes are focusing events for climate policy. We further discuss the implications of our findings, raising several questions and suggestions for future research.
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