Newspapers Can Make a Climate Change
By: Ray Daly
Tags: Climate Change, Climate, Newspapers, News Organizations

Responsible news organizations need to add a “Climate” section to their news reporting. This section should have equal footing with all other major sections like News, Politics, Business, Sports, and Tech. The editors would take a lead in reporting the “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” to avoid a global crisis and ecological destruction. Stories in the Climate sections will be the report card on humanity.

“There is no documented historical precedent” — U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

Margaret Sullivan wrote in The Washington Post that the IPCC report needs “sustained emphasis, by the media and the public, all over the world, if we stand a chance of maintaining a livable planet.” Brian Stelter at CNN Business agreed, quoting her article: “… the best minds in media should be giving sustained attention to how to tell this most important story that will create change.” Philip Gourevitch of the New Yorker tweeted “a bracing reminder that every issue we devote attention to other than climate change is really a secondary issue.”

Some in the media understand the problem. For example, front page stories in The New York Times and The Washington Post on October 7, 2018. Since then the coverage in the media and by politicians has been minimal or covered as politics. The layout of the newspapers and the navigation of news sites do not emphasis the importance of this news. Only a new major section on Climate can change this.

A Climate section would have many positive impacts. The new section would elevate the importance of the issue in the eyes of the public. It would put the climate denier stories the same section as stories of the actual impact of warmer oceans and other problems. Climate stories would be moved out of the short term thinking of the Politics section to a more thoughtful section. News organizations would assign editors, writers and other resources to cover the issue. Stories would get reported that might not otherwise be covered. And the media would seem more relevant to the majority and increasing number of Americans who accept that our changing climate is having an impact.

There are more than enough stories that the Climate Section would cover. For example:

Bill Gate’s timely action on a pilot fund in the EU to stop climate change

Impact of warmer oceans on destruction of recent hurricanes

Exxon Mobil’s and others’ support for a carbon tax

Retired rear admiral call for more research funding

Job creation in renewable energy

Disagreements with IPCC’s report

There is a precedent for adding a section in response to a global change. When the tech industry started in the 1970s the technology stories got scattered into many different newspaper sections. Few reporters were covering the industry or its impact. By the 1990s the global impact of the technology on business, culture and our politics was hard to deny. Even though some people still doubted the impact of tech, many newspapers took the lead and added Tech sections. Editors and reporters were assigned and the story was told. Today, it is hard to image a major news organization not covering tech.

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It is time for news publishers to move climate articles out of the Politics section and into a Climate section. News organizations can make this change and have an impact.