How to get the most important climate story of the decade right

solar panels in the foreground, and the now-defunct Komati coal chimney stacks in the background

Journalists fumbled several key elements when telling the story of the transition of Komati coal power station in Mpumalanga, South Africa. Picture: Supplied by Eskom

21st January 2025

Four years ago, South Africa entered into a world-first pact with the wealthy nations, the latter of which pledged to help us meet our climate commitments mainly by reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the energy sector. This involved decommissioning coal power stations and shifting to renewable energy sources.  

Key in the agreement was that the energy transition had to be just, in that affected workers and communities would not be disadvantaged by the shift and could also share in the benefits of a low-carbon economy.

From that moment, South Africa became the first country in the world to plan a just transition at an economy-wide scale. It meant we had an opportunity to lay out a blueprint for how to get it right. But it also meant we’d be the first to make mistakes.

Journalists reporting on the just transition in South Africa have found themselves in the same position – at risk of making costly mistakes as we navigate how to interrogate an important but complex story, explaining it well to a wide audience under tight deadlines.

During my fellowship at the Reuters Institute, I wanted to catalogue the challenges and think about possible solutions to informing the public more accurately.

Instead of asking editors and fellow journalists about their approaches to reporting on the just transition, I first turned to the researchers, policymakers, development practitioners, those advising government and communication professionals within government to weigh in on the gaps they’ve found in our media coverage.  

I did eventually reach out to journalists – those who, like me, have had to report on the complex beat that is climate change – to give a critical view on how the recommendations would practically playout in newsrooms.  

The challenges

Here’s what I learnt about the challenges journalists face in their storytelling:

  1. Journalists show a lack of appreciation for the complexity of a just transition

The just transition can mean different things to different stakeholders. But at its core, it’s about justice for communities undergoing a transition to a low-carbon economy. It’s a way to rethink economies and improve the quality of people’s lives. Journalists have not communicated this well, often because the just transition is a complex matter, and it has been oversimplified into digestible news bites. This is often to the detriment of public understanding.

Furthermore, a lack of understanding about the just transition by journalists themselves means that they have failed to scrutinise it in the public interest.

  1. Misinformation is spread about the just transition and picked up by reputable media houses

Journalists have freely cited false claims about the just transition by self-proclaimed “experts”, lobby groups and some politicians without further interrogation and fact checking.

Media coverage of false narratives, without proper contextualisation, is harmful. This was seen with the decommissioning of coal power station Komati, when journalists falsely attributed the funding of the project and failed to raise expert voices. More effort should have been made to do on-the-ground reporting to verify and communicate the community initiatives underway.

A lack of transparency about the just transition by government and other decision makers is also compromising journalists’ ability to get the story right.

  1. Under-resourced newsrooms compromise the quality of reporting on the just transition.

Journalists today must know a little about everything but then lack in-depth knowledge about one thing. This means we can’t assess actions around the just transition properly, which also has ramifications for the public being able to hold decisionmakers accountable.  

Moreover, the lack of specialised reporting or beats in newsroom has allowed misinformation about the just transition to take hold.

Difficulty in accessing independent experts, along with representative voices within tight deadlines amid daily newsroom demands is leading to incomplete stories that do not do the topic justice.

So how do we fix it?

  1. Background briefings or bust

We need to get journalists in the room with the researchers, policy advisors and decisionmakers who are at the forefront of the transition. Allowing them to provide background briefings on contentious issues, so that journalists are empowered with information and not used to spread false narratives. 

Editors need to release journalists to participate in these engagements for the benefit of future storytelling.

  1. Keep the conversations going with a network

To sustain background briefings, they need to be led by a network of journalists across different newsrooms that meet regularly, to participate in training sessions and exchange insights, equipping newsrooms to tackle challenges as they arise.

  1. Rethinking sources

Journalists need to rethink what constitutes an “expert source” and include more representative voices in their stories – or, as some interviewees put it: not just the “same white men” who are likely disconnected from communities affected by the transition.

  1. Context is everything

Complex issues like the just transition and climate change need careful storytelling that includes context.

For newsrooms without specialist reporters, they need explanatory documents on the just transition for people to access, including sub-editors and line editors, who check submissions and to build their literacy too. These documents can ensure there is at least a base-level of understanding of the just transition throughout the newsroom.

If you are a journalist, scientist or policymaker and you’d like to get involved in building a bridge of understanding about the just transition, so that the public can navigate it well, I’d like to hear from you. You can reach me at this email address.

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