PLEA Network

25 January 2021, Renew Economy, One year after “Black Summer” bushfire crisis, media misinformation still burns. During Australia’s Black Summer bushfire crisis, misinformation raged alongside the flames. Large media outlets pushed the line that the sheer intensity of the crisis could be explained by a sudden surge in arson attacks, using an inflated number that simply kept growing in size. This falsehood was presented as a counter to the widespread assumption that climate change had played a major role in making that bushfire season so wildly catastrophic and unusual. That misinformation was eventually firmly debunked. About 0.09% of the fires in New South Wales were found to be deliberately lit, and all of these were minor spot fires, found the NSW Royal Commission report, and the federal equivalent firmly pins climate change as a major cause. Much of the initial misinformation was driven by 7 News Australia, first with a post claiming the following: Read more here