Raymond Zhong Reports on Thwaites Glacier Expedition
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- Raymond Zhong, a climate reporter, leads the Antarctic expedition coverage published February 20, 2026, with a production team of Chang W. Lee, Kassie Bracken, Jon Miller, Stephanie Swart, and Anna Casper.
- The flagship video, titled "Who Is Not Funding This Antarctic Expedition?", frames the reporting around gaps in American polar research funding rather than the science itself.
- Thwaites Glacier is the expedition's focus, described across the series as Antarctica's "most menacing" and "fastest-melting" glacier, with a companion segment asking how its collapse could affect millions of people.
- The package is structured as a multimedia "Journey to Antarctica" series, including behind-the-scenes video on what Zhong eats on the ice, a first look below the glacier, and a segment answering reader-submitted questions from kids.
- The stated editorial framing is "America's shifting relationship with polar research amid the threat of rising sea levels" — linking US funding decisions to downstream climate consequences for coastal populations.
Why it matters: By titling the lead video "Who Is Not Funding This Antarctic Expedition?" the outlet positions the story as a policy story dressed as a science dispatch. Thwaites is repeatedly labeled Antarctica's most menacing and fastest-melting glacier in the package, and the editorial frame explicitly connects that ice loss to "the threat of rising sea levels" — meaning the funding question and the physical risk are presented as the same story.
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