The Guardian’s reporting on the environment overtakes politics
The Guardian has reported more news articles this year on environment than politics, according to an analysis by Birmingham Eastside. This is the first time environment reporting has overtaken politics.
The climate crisis has become the most defining issue of our time. With that belief, The Guardian, in 2019, pledged that it will “play a leading role in reporting on the environmental catastrophe” and published its progress on the pledge amid the ongoing United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26).
How much does The Guardian report on the environment?
The articles on The Guardian’s website are organised in sections such as world news, politics, environment, business, society, etc. The analysis - on nearly two million articles published since 1999 - measured the number of articles published in each section.
While the total number of articles has remained relatively stable across the years, the reporting on the environment has steadily increased. In 2021, for the first time, environment reporting has overtaken other important topics like politics, marking its significance.
What topics are reported the most?
World news, business, football and other sports continue to dominate The Guardian’s agenda in 2021.
Method and Data
This analysis uses the UK edition and thus excludes regional news sections of the US and Australia. For 2021, the data is until October 31.
There is data on all the articles published on Guardian’s website from 1999 on Guardian’s API. The analysis can be found here.
