This is the wrong time for major media to shut down environmental coverage

“Sorry. The person you emailed is no longer working here.”

As a PR person with decades in the business, I’ve never witnessed a bloodbath like what’s happened to reporters who cover climate and environmental health over the past year.

In 2026 alone, media outlets that have cut climate and health reporters include:

NPR – cut the climate desk, climate editor, and a climate correspondent who had been with the network for 22 years

Washington Post – fired 14 of 19 climate reporters, according to the Energy Mix and Democratic Underground, including their only reporter who was specifically covering “environment health.”

Wall Street Journal – cut their lone climate reporter as well as almost every other reporter who covered health. At least one retired, but was she forced to?

CBS News – cut its only climate reporter.

Environmental Health News cut its reporting team. They are now primarily a news curator site.

E&E News, which stands for Energy and Environment News, was taken over by Politico. According to a social media post by one of E&E’s editors, Politico is reportedly sunsetting the E&E brand and cutting multiple daily newsletters. I’m already seeing less focus on the environment in their coverage.

The impact of these losses on news coverage is real. According to E360, Yale University’s environmental news site, global climate coverage has dropped every year over the past four years. This while the earth is heating up faster, ocean currents that control weather are breaking down, and this year’s El Nino storm pattern is expected to be more than twice as powerful as any previous.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is attacking climate, science, and the environment faster than King Henry VIII changed wives. It’s no secret that the fossil fuel industry gave the Trump campaign millions of dollars to do its bidding, and that’s paid off.

For example, Trump’s EPA is giving polluters a free pass – literally. Polluters can email EPA to get a “waiver” for air pollution. I’m not making this up. Corporate and political influence have also resulted in pressuring EPA scientists to downplay the health risks of toxic chemicals in their chemical risk evaluations. Under Trump, EPA is trying to fast track approvals of AI data centers and roll back any progress the prior administration made to ban toxic chemicals like asbestos, PFAS, and formaldehyde.

If that’s not enough, the chemical industry spends millions of dollars to lobby Congress each year. Their goal? To gut America’s chemical safety law, the Toxic Substances Control Act. This would result in millions more Americans exposed to harmful chemicals and an EPA that does little to nothing about it.

All these policies are part of a corporate-driven agenda that large majorities of the American public oppose, according to multiple recent public opinion surveys:

• A YouGov poll on behalf of the Environmental Protection Network found an overwhelming majority of voters are alarmed by what Trump’s EPA is doing while many admit they have heard little about what’s happening at the Agency.
  • 84% say Trump should be tougher on corporate polluters
  • 91% want EPA to ensure clean air and water
  • 81% say they are concerned about EPA rolling back protections against toxic chemicals and pollution
  • 75% say limiting toxic chemicals should be a high or somewhat high priority at EPA
• A Hart Research survey on behalf of Earthjustice and other environmental groups found:
  • More than half of voters agree that harmful chemicals, pesticides, and plastics are a very big or fairly big problem
  • 61% give the government poor marks on protecting people from toxic chemicals and
  • 67% say the federal government does too little on the issue of toxic chemicals.
• Pew Research found 5 of 6 adults want the government to ensure chemicals are safe
• A survey for EDF found people support clean energy compared to gas by 2 to 1.

So, when it comes to environmental issues, there is an enormous disconnect between what Americans say they want and what the Trump administration is doing.

The good news is that outlets like The Guardian and ProPublica are still doing important investigative journalism on environmental issues. And issue-focused outlets like DeSmog, Grist, and The New Lede are emerging and gaining audiences. But fewer major outlets and reporters covering these critical issues mean that fewer stories get covered and fewer people hear about them.

And if people are left in the dark, that means polluter-driven agendas can proceed despite the overwhelming majority of Americans being opposed to them.

Featured image by Getty Images for Unsplash.