Whose voices are most likely to receive news coverage in the US debate about climate change? Elite cues embedded in mainstream media can influence public opinion on climate change, so it is important to understand whose perspectives are most likely to be represented. Here, I use plagiarism-detection software to analyze the media coverage of a large random sample of business, government, and social advocacy organizations’ press releases about climate change (n = 1,768), examining which messages are cited in all articles published about climate change in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today from 1985 to 2014 (n = 34,948). I find that press releases opposing action to address climate change are about twice as likely to be cited in national newspapers as are press releases advocating for climate action. In addition, messages from business coalitions and very large businesses are more likely than those from other types of organizations to receive coverage. Surprisingly, press releases from organizations providing scientific and technical services are less likely to receive news coverage than are other press releases in my sample, suggesting that messages from organizations with greater scientific expertise receive less media attention. These findings support previous scholars’ claims that journalistic norms of balance and objectivity have distorted the public debate around climate change, while providing evidence that the structural power of business interests lends them heightened visibility in policy debates.

在有关气候变化的美国辩论中，谁的声音最有可能获得新闻报道？嵌入在主流媒体中的精英线索可以影响公众对气候变化的看法，因此了解谁的观点最有可能被表达很重要。在这里，我使用窃检测软件来分析企业，政府和社会倡导组织有关气候变化的新闻稿（n = 1,768）的大量随机样本的媒体报道，并检查在所有有关气候变化的文章中引用了哪些信息在变化的纽约时报，华尔街日报和今日美国1985至2014年（ñ= 34,948）。我发现，反对采取行动应对气候变化的新闻稿在全国性报纸上的引用率是主张采取气候行动的新闻稿的两倍。此外，来自企业联盟和大型企业的消息比来自其他类型组织的消息更有可能获得覆盖。令人惊讶的是，与我的样本中的其他新闻发布相比，提供科学和技术服务的组织的新闻发布获得新闻报道的可能性较小，这表明来自具有更强科学专业知识的组织的消息获得的媒体关注较少。这些发现支持了以前的学者的观点，即新闻工作者的平衡与客观规范扭曲了围绕气候变化的公众辩论，