What is the Media's role in the Climate Change debate at COP17 and beyond?

In spending this morning at the Earth Journalism Network's Climate Communication Day, a photo-journalist asked a very pertinent question during the first plenary "A focus on the message". He asked: "Why is climate change reporting not integrating with or acknowledging the economic and social movements (think Occupy) that will actually bring about the desired change?"


A few thought-provoking (an not always congruous) responses from the panel:
- Personalising and humanising a story remains the golden rule, as in any form of reporting.
- The jungle of jargon is to blame for mystifying the climate change debate for consumers unnecessarily.
- A journalist is not an activist / NGO, but there to tell the story. Hmm... this one elicited a LOT of emotion among the press corps! One journalist says it's like a sport editor saying I cannot go to a rugby club because it may look as if I support sport, or a lifestyle editor saying I can't go to the theatre because it may look as if I support the arts!
- But a journalist's personal story of turning their home into a green, clean carbon machine can be priceless.
- Look at the stats: Gay Parade in Rio brought 700,000 people on the streets, Occupy movement brought 200000 people to the streets, and Save the Rain Forests brought 200 people to the streets.
- How to separate being a journalist and a consumer in something such as climate change, which affects us all? An Argentinan delegate from the World Council of Churches (who had been at all 17 COP's since the RIO deal 20 years ago!!!) reminded the group that now everybody on Earth have heard the words "climate change" but among the poor, it is not a focus: MERE SURVIVAL is. It is OUR job, as those with a voice and the knowledge, to handle the climate change issue on behalf of the less privileged, who cannot.
- Then came the "climate change fatigue" admittance (and fear): just like the HIV/Aids fatigue of the past few years. What can journalists do? Keep it interesting, keep it personal, get the local stories, show how it affects your readers!
- Haili Cao from China's Caixin Media commented on the difficulty of reporting local natural disasters are related to a lack of climate change mitigation / adaptation, as this often directly criticises their central government. Not unique to China...
- Channel Africa journalist, who has made it her mission the past 2.5 years to report on the rural community climate change adaptation good news stories, finds this form of journalism (make it acid mine drainage getting worse because increase of storms, gender issues, fishermen affected, grassroots; political, economic & social always!) She received a natural applause from the audience for this one!
- Nigerian journalist says consumer behavioural change needs to be balanced with the media's role in getting decision-makers to change or enforce change! He referred to the gas flares in the Niger Delta, government postponement of ending gas flares, "the journalist is burning along with the house - what does he do?"
- Journalists and communicators alike have to be careful with the stats and sensasionalism around climate change - important to understand the context and get the local truth told.
- Commercial client PR agencies around the world are aggressively pushing a hidden or skewed agenda: how to deal with them? Just as a journalist cannot be seen as an activist in order to maintain his editor's respect, just so he cannot ignore the business world and maintain that he keeps an open mind.
- There is a story in the environment beat to be told, but don't forget: audiences are not homogenous. Who is your audience? There are two very different audiences: (a) the negotiators who would like to use the media and (b) the rest of the world, which needs to understand what is / is not happening at COP17.
- A former health professional turned climate journalist says her past life taught her how people respond to tragic (bad) news as opposed to good news (you're not ill). Given the very medical conditions of climate change fatigue spreading among populations globally, climate guilt amnesia spreading among corporate executives, and climate change bipolarity suffered mostly by public sector officials... the best cure is to show the effects of climate-unfriendly actions (bacteria) on people, and their long-term diagnosis - not only what it does to the environment.
- In Australia, climate denialists / skeptics compete with the evangelists for media space: how to handle this? (an Ozzie journo asks)... Randy Olson (the scientist turned environmental film-maker) replies "no" - you decide where the truth lies - should journalists entertain the Flat Earth Movement along with denialists?
- With the orthodox media model changing, and blogging / Tweets carrying media cycles of their own, especially online media houses have no idea where their messages go, and often not how they are transported (too true!)
- Finally, no matter your beat: your story stands on its professional news value (no FUD!)


*** TEA BREAK *** C'ya later, folks!