Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist and co-author of the recently released U.S. National Climate Assessment, was supposed to be Anderson Cooper’s guest during CNN’s primetime broadcast Tuesday night.
She even pre-taped the appearance for AC360, but when the live show aired, it was nowhere to be seen.
For Hayhoe, this was yet another example of cable news favoring climate deniers over climate scientists.
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After she realized what happened, Hayhoe tweeted a thread accusing CNN of bumping her to make room for paid contributor Rick Santorum, who made news over the weekend by spreading a conspiracy theory about scientists getting rich pushing climate-change alarmism during an appearance on that same network’s State of the Union.
“Let me share a sad reality,” Hayhoe began. “@AC360 asked if I could join them tonight or talk #NationalClimateAssessment.” She explained that she told them she needed to practice her upcoming TED Talk but they pleaded with her and offered to send a car to pick her up so she agreed.
“I get my hair and make up done, we drive across the city, I do the interview, Anderson is lovely, the whole thing takes three hours .... and they don’t air the interview,” she continued. “Instead, they give more airtime to Santorum, so he can to continue to spread disinformation.”
“I don’t get paid for any of this—but I think he does, doesn’t he?” Hayhoe asked. (He does.) “And this is not the first time this has happened. Chris Hayes’ program canceled three times, once when I was literally in a chair with that earpiece in my ear. When @MSNBC called me again this week, I said… I would be delighted to talk to you, but in order to be a wise steward of my time, I need a guarantee the interview will air, barring a major disaster, an assassination, or the end of the world. They did not reply.”
Hayhoe concluded by insisting that she is “not whining or complaining” and is “enormously grateful for any and all media who wants to talk climate, and equally grateful for the opportunity to do so.” However, she added, “time is the most precious resource we have, and there is not enough to go around —so when we choose how to spend our time, it just makes sense to be sure it will be used profitably and not squandered.”
According to a source from CNN who did not want to go on-record, Hayhoe’s segment was bumped due to “breaking news” about Paul Manafort’s lawyer allegedly briefing President Trump on his client’s discussions with Robert Mueller, and not for the segment that included commentary from Santorum.
They also pointed out that Hayhoe’s interview with Cooper has been posted on the network’s website, something that often happens when there isn’t time for a segment to air live.
The Daily Beast also reached out to a representative from MSNBC, and they said they had “no comment” on the matter.
It’s true that guests get bumped from cable-news shows all the time, but Hayhoe’s story is part of a disturbing trend for TV news since the dire climate-change assessment was released in a conspicuous post-Thanksgiving news dump.
Hayhoe is one of a very small handful of climate scientists to appear on cable news since the report went public, appearing in the early morning hours on CNN this past Saturday and then later with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on New Day Tuesday morning. Andrea Dutton, associate professor of geology at the University of Florida, did appear on CNN Wednesday afternoon to make the case for action on cutting carbon emissions.
More prominent and frequent platforms have been given to Rick Santorum, along with former GOP House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and conservative economist Stephen Moore, all of whom downplayed the seriousness of the report and falsely claimed that scientists are “getting really, really, really rich off the climate change issue,” as Moore put it.
If CNN viewers had seen Hayhoe’s interview with Cooper on Tuesday night, they would have heard someone who does not have to preface her words with “I’m not a scientist” deliver the rebuttal to that type of rhetoric. “Unfortunately, facts aren’t optional,” she said in a direct response to President Trump. “We can say we ‘don’t believe’ them but they’re still true.”
Instead, viewers got another chance to hear Santorum repeat his specious claims.
“I've become a very popular man on Twitter in the last couple of days for the comment I made about scientists making money,” Santorum told Cooper. “There would be no chair of the head of climate studies at every university in America if we didn’t have a crisis. These people make money because there's a crisis.”
