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Journalist Fellows' Papers

A Stormy Forecast: Identifying trends in climate change reporting

Reuters Institute Fellow's Paper

Margot O’Neill, a journalist with the ABC in Australia, has written an insightful and very readable study called ‘A Stormy Forecast: Identifying trends in climate change reporting’ of how ‘Climategate’ (the illegal hacking of emails from the University of East Anglia in late 2009) has affected the reporting of climate change by British journalists and editors.

Based on semi-structured interviews with 14 journalists and 14 other specialists, Margot aims to answer two key questions: ‘What are the problems with climate change reporting? And how can reporters better engage audiences in the future?’ In the course of her research, Margot found that half of the journalists described ‘ClimateGate’ as a game changer in their reporting of climate change; half believed their media organisations missed the story or took too long to cover it; and half said they were either giving sceptics more coverage since ‘ClimateGate’ or were more open to their points of view. The study includes interesting ideas on how to (re-) engage an audience often showing signs of climate fatigue. And Margot predicts that the issue will force itself back on the editorial agenda because of a series of ‘titanic struggles’ to come. Among them are ‘the biggest global energy transformation since the industrial revolution, the reformation of an inward-looking scientific community to accept greater transparency and robust public debate and explanation, the great ideological clash over climate change theory including right-wing fears that it is a front for left-wing eco-fascism.’

As with all Fellows’ research papers, any opinions expressed are those of the author and not of the Institute.