Climate change is ever evolving, and so are the stories covering it. The co-founder of the Oxford Climate Change Network, Wolfgang Blau, conducted a comprehensive lecture on climate change at Oxford University last week. He provided several tentpole strategies designed to promote good climate journalism and curtail shoddy reporting.
He stressed the importance of surveying and segmenting one’s audience for maximum reach. Article impact metrics are also considered. Despite their importance, climate change articles often fail to generate the churn required to catch significant promotion from the news desk. It is important for news companies to truly consider the gravity of an article on climate change, and how it may not go viral on its own.
A potential solution to this would be the inclusion of more scientists in the newsroom. This could prove an essential remedy to the false attribution that many weather stories suffer from.
Tribal Truth’s James Ferrari weighs in on the topic:
“In the coming decade, having updated consensus on all environmental science metrics, which can change often, is essential. Otherwise, combating our current climate emergency will be much more difficult.”
Check out the Neiman article on the subject, written by Hanaa’ Tameez, here:
Wolfgang Blau’s lecture remarks can be found here:
https://wblau.medium.com/climate-change-journalisms-greatest-challenge-2bb59bfb38b8
