Transforming the Media’s Coverage of the Climate Crisis

An incredibly important article and part of the transformation of our media. For years I’ve been listening to resources such as Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! cover climate change, use the words “man made climate change,” connect the dots between catastrophic climate events and human caused climate change, interview climate scientists and experts and Indigenous leaders and more about the climate crisis. This is what all of media need to do NOW! Already decades have been squandered by the corporate media’s silence and complicity with the fossil fuel industry and other huge corporate interests. This needs to end. Nothing is more important than speaking the truth about where we’re at and what we urgently need to do about it. — Molly

AT THE END OF APRIL, CJR and The Nation announced plans for a new initiative to dramatically improve the media’s coverage of the most  urgent story of our time. Since then, interest in our Covering Climate Now project has been enormous. To answer questions about it, and to outline how news outlets across the country can get involved, here’s a primer on the project and on where it goes next.

Who are we?

We are journalists, talking and working with fellow journalists, to transform our profession’s coverage of climate change. Whether you work in television or audio, print or online, for a local, regional, national, or international outlet, climate change touches every beat in every newsroom.  And at this late hour, we need journalism everywhere to treat this story with the urgency that science demands.

CJR and The Nation are leading this effort, along with partners such as The Guardian and others yet to be announced. On behalf of the Schumann Media Center, Bill Moyers pledged $1 million to support the initiative for its first year.

What are we doing?

We see ourselves as convening and informing a conversation that journalists need to have, with each other and the public we serve, about how to do justice to the climate story at this decisive historic moment.  To succeed, we need the participation and energy of as many journalists and news outlets as possible. We also need to hear from a wide range of stakeholders—scientists, advocates, government and business officials, and private citizens—about how we can do a better job of making clear what is happening, why, and what can be done about it.

We aim to bring journalists together face to face—as we did at a conference at the Columbia Journalism School in April that launched this effort, and in additional gatherings planned across the United States and abroad—and online, via a new vertical housed on the websites of CJR and The Nation. In these and other venues, we hope that journalists and others will talk about, report on, analyze, and debate how news outlets should cover the rapidly uncoiling climate crisis and its solutions.

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