Coverage of the Green New Deal and Inflation Reduction Act in the US Press

The final day at IAMCR 2023 starts with a paper by Hannah E. Morris, on climate journalism in the United States. There has been what seemed to be a striking shift in coverage in recent times, with the New York Times unusually highlighting the role of capitalism and neoliberalism as driving the climate crisis, for instance.

This is in line with the Biden administration’s desire for a new Washington consensus on contemporary issues, received possibly by the legacy press. This calls for a new industrial policy, led by the US, to address these issues, and builds on nostalgic post-war perspectives about the role of the US as a global force for stability. A key driver of this is Biden advisor Jake Sullivan.

This is also an argument to ‘build back better’ after the destruction of the Trump presidency; it seeks to take the opportunity to rebuild as the starting-point for a number of key policy changes. It reflects a longing for a time when the enemies were obvious, and strong US policies could directly address them, and an attempt to find a new, strong, exceptionalist American identity amid warnings that such American leadership roles are fragile and need to be strengthened. The Trump crisis and the climate change crisis are thus both addressed by the rhetoric of war.

But this also produces a false equivalence between the far right extremism of Trump and the millennial ‘socialism’ embraced by young people and new political actors like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, expressed in policy initiatives such as the Green New Deal – which is portrayed in mainstream media coverage as a threatening initiative that would destroy US capitalism. The counterpoint to this is the Inflation Reduction Act, which reclaims a new American exceptionalism and is seen as a core pillar of Bidenomics.

Media portrayals of the Green New Deal and Inflation Reduction Act and their proponents are starkly different, therefore. The former is presented as militant and overreaching, while the latter is seen as moderate and balanced. This draws some clear lines around what is seen as an appropriate response to the climate crisis and other issues; even though neoliberalism is increasingly questioned in media coverage, this does not mean that more progressive solutions are championed. Young climate justice warriors are othered and excluded from the debate.