'Meet The Press' earns a Cronkite Award for its coverage of climate change

It seems that whenever I visit my mother and middle sister in Utah, I watch something worthwhile.  In 2017, it was Treasures of the Earth: Power, which I wrote worksheets for both Environmental Science and Geology.  Late last year, it was an episode of "Meet The Press" about climate change.  I was impressed enough with that I decided I would write about it when I returned home.  I didn't get around to it until today, after I read last Thursday that it won a Cronkite Award for Excellence in Television Political Journalism.  The University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism explained why it earned the prize in Cronkite award winners prove facts matter.

In an extraordinary move for a Sunday show, NBC’s Meet the Press moderated by Chuck Todd devoted an entire hour to the reality of climate change, rather than giving airtime to a fake equivalence between science and science deniers. It provided a platform for climate experts and politicians from both sides of the aisle to discuss consequences and solutions. Judges called the “urgent and unprecedented” program a “breakthrough in issue coverage” that “got politicians off their talking points.”

Chuck Todd got three politicians on this program.  I begin with a former governor of my old home state, Jerry Brown, who said climate change is about inventing, "not just adapting."

In an exclusive interview, California Governor Jerry Brown (D) joins Chuck to discuss the aftermath of passing the gas tax in his state and how the wildfires this year have pushed him to "wake up the country, wake up the world" on climate change.

The next politician Todd interviewed referenced Brown and his successful gas tax increase; Michael Bloomberg on climate change, who said "This world is in trouble."

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg sits down with Chuck to discuss his work combating climate change and whether he will run for president in 2020.

I hope this segment earns a News and Documentary Emmy nomination for Outstanding Live Interview, which was won last year by "Anderson Cooper Live 360."

The final politician on the program, Rep. Carlos Curbelo, sat on the panel, which first tried to answer How do we explain the urgency of climate change?

Dr. Kate Marvel, NBC’s Anne Thompson, Craig Fugate, Michèle Flournoy and Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.) join the panel in a special edition of Meet the Press to discuss how to get Americans to understand the urgency, and the cost, of climate change.

Todd and the panel returned in Politics and climate change: How to break the paralysis.

Dr. Kate Marvel, NBC’s Anne Thompson, Craig Fugate, Michèle Flournoy and Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.) join the panel in a special edition of Meet the Press to discuss Washington's fractured response to combating climate change.

Watching these videos was time well spent.  I think and feel I am smarter than I was before I watched them, which is a rare thing these days.  I hope my readers agree.  May the Television Academy in New York do as well and nominate this segment for Outstanding News Discussion & Analysis, which was won last year by "All In With Chris Hayes."  I am not going to hold my breath.  It's a long time until the end of July, when the nominees are announced, and the competition will be stiff.

I'm not done with the Cronkite Awards.  Stay tuned for more winners tomorrow.