CBS News Expands Its Climate Reporting Team

Tracy Wholf (Courtesy CBS News & Stations)

Adrienne Roark, president of content development and integration, CBS News and Stations and CBS Media Ventures, today sent out a staff memo announcing the hiring of Tracy Wholf as senior producer of climate, as well as the promotion of Chris Spinder, a longtime award-winning CBS News producer, to climate producer.

The moves follow Roark’s October announcement to staff that she planned to create a data journalism team, hire a head of weather strategy and operations for CBS News and Stations and a head of climate coverage for CBS News and Stations.

Roark said today: “We are announcing Tracy Wholf has been named our new senior producer of climate. Tracy comes to us from the Climate Unit at ABC News and Stations, where she has produced and coordinated award-winning climate coverage across all platforms. She helped launch the ABC Climate Unit in 2021, and recently was nominated for a 2024 duPont-Columbia award for the ABC News special Power of Water examining how climate change impacts a vital resource for disadvantaged communities across the globe. She has over a decade of experience working in news and documentary production for networks including PBS, NatGeo, ESPN, and ABC News. She starts Dec. 12.

Chris Spinder (Courtesy CBS News & Stations)

“I’m also pleased to announce Chris Spinder, longtime award-winning CBS News producer, is now our climate producer. Chris has done tremendous work in the climate and environmental space since joining CBS News in 2011. He’s consistently produced impactful climate and environmental segments for CBS Mornings, CBS Evening News, and CBS Saturday Morning. He will now join the climate unit full-time, working with Ben Tracy, as well as David Schechter and Dave Malkoff of the Innovation Lab, and other correspondents and storytellers across the organization.

“Tracy and Chris will work closely to develop, collaborate, and coordinate coverage on this very important topic. We’ve already started this work, with the network and stations teams meeting to share notes and ideas. Together, Tracy and Chris will supercharge this collaboration and lead us in creating a powerful and unified team.

“In addition to Climate, there are opportunities for us across News, Stations and CMV, to grow the scale and impact of our reporting on other issues that we know are important to audiences. In the coming weeks, we will also be formalizing the following beats:

• Safety/crime/guns
• Consumer/tech/business
• Medical/health
• Transportation
• Border/immigration

“Dedicating ourselves to these issue-areas – outside the scope of politics and international which have dedicated bureaus – will strengthen and differentiate our coverage. We currently have strong correspondents, reporters, storytellers and contributors across News, Stations, and CMV, who have expertise, experience and passion covering these topics. We want to supercharge their work with a coordinated structure that incentivizes collaboration and innovation, creates a pipeline of agenda-setting enterprise reporting, and enables us to lead the way on major breaking news with timely, urgent, high-impact work.

“As with the new climate beat announced today, each beat will be led by senior producers and producers reporting into David Reiter and Chad Cross, and will work in partnership with, and in service to all shows, stations, and streaming.

“Tapping into the enormous expertise across our organization is an advantage. And as we do this, our commitment to excellence in our journalism will continue to be the guiding light.”

As part of CBS News and Stations climate coverage, it announced today “an unprecedented journey into the heart of the world’s northernmost and fastest-warming community in Svalbard, Norway,” in a five-part docuseries, Warming Signs, running today, Dec. 4, through Friday, Dec. 8. A different segment airs each day within the local newscasts of CBS owned stations, culminating to an hour-long special, On the Dot With David Schechter, that will air and stream on CBS Stations starting Dec. 8.

Warming Signs is hosted by award-winning national environmental correspondent David Schechter, explores what scientists are learning in Norway about how global warming is causing pivotal changes in our climate and contributing to our extreme weather events.

Warming Signs is a collaboration, led by the CBS Local News Innovation Lab, between specialized climate-trained journalists and meteorologists at each CBS-owned station. As part of the week-long project, local climate stories relevant to respective CBS-owned markets will air in the local newscasts in Baltimore, Bay Area, Boston, Chicago, Colorado, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Minnesota, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Sacramento and Texas.  Viewers can watch on-demand on CBSNews.com/warmingsigns.

The week-long series will feature daily segments from Norway by Schechter, including:

• Measuring melting: Scientists on Svalbard are closely gauging the rate of glacier melt to project potential rises in U.S. sea levels.
• More methane: Despite U.S. efforts to curb greenhouse gases, melting glaciers in Svalbard are exacerbating the issue in unexpected ways.
• Arctic renewables: Pioneering renewable energy experiments are underway in Svalbard’s unforgiving arctic conditions, exploring its viability in the coldest climates.
• Avalanche safety: Svalbard is pioneering early warning systems to prevent avalanches, potentially benefiting global safety measures.
• Disappearing ice: Svalbard’s lack of freezing sea ice, a consequence of rapid Arctic warming, could impact winter weather patterns across the United States.

Complementing Schechter’s Norwegian reports, each CBS Station will produce local climate impact stories that will air within their respective newscast focusing on the following:

• Coastal markets:The rising sea levels’ impact on communities and adaptation strategies in the face of relentless climate change.
• Inland markets:Shedding light on the escalating unpredictability of winter weather and its repercussions on local populations.