Media have a powerful impact on how consumers, voters, and companies perceive the world and make decisions. But how does heat affect the tone of the news?
In the new article — “Too Hot to Play it Cool? Temperature and Negative Media Bias” — just published in Public Choice, Nikita Zakharov, David Stadelmann, and Tobias Thomas of the Graz Schumpeter Centre (GSC) explore how outdoor temperature shapes political coverage in U.S. newscasts from ABC, CBS, and NBC. Analyzing more than a decade of evening broadcasts, the authors find that on hot days (above 25 °C / 77 °F), every 0.5 °C (0.9 °F) increase in maximum temperature leads to roughly a 10% rise in negative media bias — mainly due to more negative coverage toward Republicans. The results derived from econometric analysis in a natural experiment setting hold up to a range of robustness tests.
In an era of climate change and growing polarization, these findings deserve attention.
Read the open-access article here:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11127-025-01329-7