Climate Story Gaps in Washington, DC

In December 2023 and December 2024, we gathered 144 articles about climate change using a manual Google search for stories focused on climate change and adjacent topics the District of Columbia. We used the Google News tool, driven by a set of keyword search terms. Because we were looking for articles in DC that discussed climate change and adjacent topics, we developed a list of search terms informed by one team member’s experience as a climate journalist and Ranganathan and Bratman’s 2019 article, "From Urban Resilience to Abolitionist Climate Justice in Washington, DC". We entered the following terms into the Google News search:

We know Google News has its own internal ranking tool to determine which results populate higher than others. Google News search documentation describes some factors for how their algorithm provides articles and responses to search terms. Possible factors that could sway search can include Google News deliberately elevating news sources listed as trustworthy, as well. Since we had topic and location specific queries, we used boolean search operators in Google to ensure our articles were geographically specific to DC and stories discussing climate change, and related impacts. We manually coded the articles to assess whether climate change was mentioned, the places the articles discussed, the climate impacts they mentioned, which adjacent topics they covered, and who was quoted in each article. If more than one example of each category appeared in a story, we coded for all of them. For instance, if both a government official and a community member were quoted, we would include them both in our coding. We also included one sample quote for each story that quoted an individual.

Building on the work of Ranganathan and Bratman (ibid.), the climate adjacent topics we coded for were: food security, gentrification, police relations, crime, water pollution, air pollution, public health, evictions houselessness, trash pickup, elder concerns, and civil rights. With these categories, we aim to understand conversations across a wider swathe of concerns than those discussed through the lens of climate change. To understand whose expertise journalists seek on climate and adjacent topics, we noted quoted people’s occupations.

Washington, DC, is divided into eight wards, some of which have a far greater share of wealth and other factors shielding residents from the effects of climate change such as tree canopy, elevation, and proximity to the polluted Anacostia River. When an article mentioned a specific ward, we noted it. If an article mentioned a place but not its ward, we also calculated the ward and added it.