Last week, Lou Del Bello, a Delhi-based climate reporter, vented her frustration on Twitter that Western newspaper editors have been turning down “doom and gloom” climate story pitches from freelance journalists because their “privileged” readers were tired of negative stories and were suffering from climate anxiety.
Del Bello’s justifiable anger comes a month after the release of research by PR firm Cognito, which found that coverage of climate solutions such as hydrogen, bioenergy, and carbon capture had increased by 50% over the past year, with more and more editors only publishing climate stories that include solutions to the climate crisis.
While this may seem like a positive step, it means that important stories regarding climate disasters such as heatwaves in Asia and severe droughts in Africa go unreported due to little or no immediate local solutions to those issues.
Hong Kong-based freelance journalist Peter Yeung, a long-time BBC contributor, said at an event hosted by Solutions Journalism Network that “editors should not aim to include a solutions angle in every climate story, as that can mean simplifying complex issues and suggesting that there is always a solution”.
“Journalists need to watch out for stories pitched by public relations firms that are sold as solutions. Evidence of the proof of impact is a crucial part of a solutions journalism story, as are limitations,” Yeung said.
Environmental journalists being forced to only produce stories that include solutions is akin to climate greenwashing, as it portrays the idea that there is a simple solution to the issue and that people do not actually have to do something because someone else already has the solution.
Recently, the issue of press freedom with regard to climate reporting has arisen in several countries around the world. Eco-Business reported last week that Vietnamese freelancer and educator, Trang Vu, recently interviewed Vietnamese journalists working in national newspapers.
Common feedback from these writers was that their newsrooms or editors demanded that they “provide a glimpse of a climate solution, preferably one proposed by the local authorities.”
“Coverage of climate challenges in Vietnam is okay, but stories should not end on a too-negative note,” she told Eco-Business.
Stories about ongoing crises have always been hard to sell to editors, with the same being true for issues pertaining to war, health, and migration, said James Lorenz, who pitches environmental stories to editors in his role as executive director of Action Speaks Louder, a non-profit that holds firms accountable for their climate promises.
“People often want to pitch a story thinking that because something is important, it’s news. It isn’t. That’s only a part of it. News, by its nature, is not just important, it’s new, intriguing, different, or surprising,” he told Eco-Business.
The urgency of a rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future should be on the front pages every day, but the reality is there are fewer journalists and the mainstream media’s readership is declining, so there’s more pressure on a smaller market to win reader interest, Lorenz said.
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