Climate change leads to more frequent and severe flooding, urging cities to adapt to protect their populations and assets. Despite exacerbated hazards, governments repeatedly draw on ‘tried-and-true’ approaches to protect the status quo, often with serious adverse effects for the poor and vulnerable. Yet, such dominant approaches do not go unchallenged as the media and other actors prompt public debate to assess flood impacts, scrutinise government decisions, and perhaps even promote alternative practices. News outlets are not, however, balanced or value-free; the events portrayed and the voices (and knowledges) recognised and included in media coverage deeply influence whether and how flooding is incorporated in policy. Focusing on São Paulo, Brazil, we examine how the media framed flood events and conveyed solutions during the city’s worst floods in recorded history. We demonstrate how competing media outlets largely depicted flooding as a natural phenomenon to be solved by governments and experts through existing techno-managerial practices, mirroring governmental partisan plans for adaptive action. In doing so, the media failed to offer a democratic space for public discussion, citizen contestation, and the advancement of alternative trajectories for adaptation. We posit that inclusive trajectories that address entrenched vulnerabilities and projected climate change will benefit from rigorous ethical debates around the media’s role in disaster coverage while strategically leveraging alternative media outlets as public pedagogy and agenda-setting tools.

气候变化导致洪水泛滥和加剧，敦促城市做出调整以保护其人口和财产。尽管危害加剧，但政府仍反复采用“尝试并真实”的方法来保护现状，通常会对穷人和弱势群体造成严重的不利影响。然而，随着媒体和其他参与者促使公众进行辩论以评估洪水影响，审查政府决策，甚至可能推广替代性做法，此类主导方法并没有受到挑战。但是，新闻媒体不是平衡的或没有价值的。所描述的事件以及媒体报道中公认和包含的声音（和知识）深刻影响着洪水是否以及如何纳入政策。以巴西圣保罗为中心，我们考察了媒体在记录的历史上最严重的洪灾期间如何构筑洪水事件并传达解决方案。我们展示了竞争的媒体如何将洪灾描述为自然现象，政府和专家可以通过现有的技术管理实践来解决，反映政府的党派行动计划。在这种情况下，媒体未能为公众讨论，公民争夺以及推进适应性替代轨迹提供民主的空间。我们认为，解决根深蒂固的脆弱性和预计的气候变化的包容性轨迹将受益于围绕媒体在灾难报道中作用的严格的伦理辩论，同时从战略上利用替代媒体作为公共教学法和议程设定工具。