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From Katrina to Helene: A timeline of Fox News’ hurricane misinformation, harmful narratives, and climate denial
For two decades, Fox News has weaponized major disasters caused by supercharged storms to attack political opponents, push right-wing narratives, and deny climate change. Major storms that hit populated areas generate wall-to-wall TV news coverage. At its best, this coverage exposes systemic issues that leave certain populations vulnerable to disasters, keeps a spotlight on both rescue and recovery processes to keep accountable those responsible for disaster response, and discusses the link between our warming planet and the intensification of storms, along with solutions for reducing climate pollution.At its worst, coverage ignores these issues, downplaying or denying the role of climate change and using disasters to amplify false narratives and misinformation that serve a political agenda. In 20 years of hurricane reporting, Fox News’ coverage has predominately reflected the latter.Below is an overview of some of the major storms that have made landfall in the U.S. over the past 20 years – and how Fox covered them.
