The majority of Latinos in the United States (81%) have said that climate change is one of their top concerns and the issue disproportionately affects their communities. But local Spanish-language newspapers in the United States aren’t localizing climate change stories for Spanish-language audiences, according to a new study.

In a paper published in the Environmental Communication Journal last week, “Localizing (or not) climate change in Spanish-language newspapers in the United States,” researchers Bruno Takahashi (Michigan State University) and María Fernanda Salas (University of Costa Rica) write that “in an ideal scenario, coverage would be localized to inform vulnerable communities of threats, adaptation strategies, and potential solutions to the issue.”

Takahashi and Salas analyzed the headlines and leads of 536 climate-related stories published by seven U.S. Spanish-language newspapers between 2010 and 2021. The newspapers, all in areas with large Spanish-speaking populations, were La Opinión (Los Angeles), El Diario La Prensa (New York City), El Nuevo Herald (Miami), La Prensa (Orlando), La Raza (Chicago), El Pregonero (Washington, D.C.), and Excélsior (Orange County, California). About 40% of the articles (215) were published in the “news” section, 177 in the national section, and 88 in the international section. (The rest were published in other sections, like the editorial pages, lifestyle, or entertainment.)

The study’s authors write:

The coverage of climate change in Spanish-language media resembles that of the dominant mainstream press instead of the community press model that it [displays] in the coverage of other issues of importance to their audiences. The coverage does not follow the coverage in Spanish-language media of other issues such as immigration or health. It also probably does not play an assimilation or acculturation function. This could mean that Latin American immigrants are ill-informed, based in terms of quantity and quality of coverage, of the present and future impacts that climate change has on their health, livelihoods, and economic opportunities.

They found that the number of climate-related stories in their sample peaked at 200 in 2019, but even then “the coverage represents on average fewer than three articles a month in any given newspaper.” After that, coverage dipped, with just 61 climate stories in 2021. Of the 536 stories in the sample, 303 were written by reporters, 108 were republished from national and international wire services, and 125 were attributed to the newsroom.

Stories largely focused on three themes: climate-related impacts; mitigation and adaptation solutions; and policy proposals and political discussions. Although the stories were published by local news outlets, most were focused on the state, national, or international level.

“Newspapers failed to clearly localize issues for their audiences,” the study’s authors write. “Few articles described present or future climate impacts, as well as proposed solutions directly impacting local Hispanic communities. This could suggest that these media are not serving a watchdog function or engaging with the most pressing local climate risks and impacts. This could also have implications for community empowerment or even political engagement, including voting behaviors, since climate adaptation and risk management requires practical actionable information.”

Climate events like hurricanes, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, droughts, flooding, wildfires, and extreme heat were the most frequently mentioned, but only a handful of articles centered the impacts of those events — like air pollution and food insecurity — on local Hispanic communities. A headline from La Opinión in 2020 that read “[Scientists] anticipate that climate change will hit the poor and minorities the hardest – They also warn that there will be more and more forest fires in California and around the planet,” was just one in a handful of the study’s sample to center local impact.

Solution-oriented stories were found to be “broad and largely beyond the immediate needs or interests of Hispanic communities (e.g. international cooperation, national level emissions reduction, infrastructure projects, among others).”  The stories about climate mitigation strategies were mostly about awareness efforts, such as art installations, celebrity statements, and protest coverage. There were few stories about technology-based solutions like electric cars and renewable energy.

Policy stories mostly focus on national and international proposals and discussions (“Maduro lashes out against capitalism at UN and calls for climate change actions,” one 2014 headline from El Nuevo Herald read), but rarely centered local policies and politics.

Scientists and government officials were among the most prominent figures mentioned in the stories studied. Local community actors (such as community organizations, farmers, and marginalized communities) were the third most prominent group mentioned but were most often discussed as victims of climate change.

Takahashi and Salas recommend that the newspapers implement solidarity journalism (amplifying the voices of the most affected communities) and solutions journalism (explaining issues and what actions readers can take) strategies to better serve local audiences.

Read the full study here.