https://www.pnas.org/content/118/2/e2002552117

Perspective
No buzz for bees: Media coverage of pollinator decline
Scott L. Althaus, View ORCID Profile <http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3165-8385>May
R. Berenbaum, View ORCID Profile <http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9246-5355>Jenna
Jordan, and Dan A. Shalmon
PNAS January 12, 2021 118 (2) e2002552117;
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2002552117

   1.

   Edited by David L. Wagner, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, and
   accepted by Editorial Board Member Douglas Futuyma June 29, 2020 (received
   for review March 16, 2020)


Abstract

Although widespread declines in insect biomass and diversity are increasing
concerns within the scientific community, it remains unclear whether
attention to pollinator declines has also increased within information
sources serving the general public. Examining patterns of journalistic
attention to the pollinator population crisis can also inform efforts to
raise awareness about the importance of declines of insect species
providing ecosystem services beyond pollination. We used the Global News
Index developed by the Cline Center for Advanced Social Research at the
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign to track news attention to
pollinator topics in nearly 25 million news items published by two American
national newspapers and four international wire services over the past four
decades. We found vanishingly low levels of attention to pollinator
population topics relative to coverage of climate change, which we use as a
comparison topic. In the most recent subset of ∼10 million stories
published from 2007 to 2019, 1.39% (137,086 stories) refer to climate
change/global warming while only 0.02% (1,780) refer to pollinator
populations in all contexts, and just 0.007% (679) refer to pollinator
declines. Substantial increases in news attention were detectable only in
US national newspapers. We also find that, while climate change stories
appear primarily in newspaper “front sections,” pollinator population
stories remain largely marginalized in “science” and “back section”
reports. At the same time, news reports about pollinator populations
increasingly link the issue to climate change, which might ultimately help
raise public awareness to effect needed policy changes.

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