From Black Summer to coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef to extreme weather events, climate change is increasingly making headlines. However, the media often fails to report the long-term impacts and complexities behind these events adequately. It either reports the issue as a symphony of threats to nature or is ignorant of the scientific facts behind it.
What is the role of journalists in reporting climate crises?
Journalists have a key social and political position in recognising the unfathomable global risk, such as how they apportion different viewpoints in an article or what questions they ask in newsrooms.
While objectivity is a cornerstone of ethical journalism, striving for neutrality can sometimes distort the truth, especially in the context of climate change. Standing at the frontline of environmental communication, the endeavour of neutrality in journalism has created a false balance in climate reporting. It inhibits journalists from negotiating the difficult ground of authentic balance, expert opinion, and audience expectation.
False balance in climate reporting
False balance refers to the journalistic practice of presenting two sides of an issue as though they hold equal merit, even when one is overwhelmingly supported by evidence while the other is not. In the case of climate change, this often means giving undue weight to climate sceptics despite the overwhelming scientific consensus on human-driven global warming.
Communication, climate, and science scholar Michael Brüggemann says the media confuses the audience by perpetuating a myth of a lack of international scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change. The practice of demonstrating professional objectivity and fending off accusations of one-sided coverage failed to deliver the dire effort of combating climate change. The significance of climate change is “practically invisible.” The complex and abstract scientific concepts are not explained sufficiently for the public to realise that climate change is not just a “story” but a realisation of an impact on their future.
In April 2019, the media and the Australian government undermined and ignored environmental leaders’ warnings of the bushfire. When the fires had been burning for two months in November, the Guardian reported it as a “natural disaster”, and Australians thought it was “normal”. Environmental leaders later argued that it was not natural. They believed the government could have taken the lead in preparing citizens for an escalating climate threat. At the same time, the media played a major role in reporting their warnings to raise public awareness of the need to protect the environment to minimise the disaster.
During the media bombardment of coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef, outlets such as ABC misinterpreted human activity and environmental change as mutually exclusive. While mainstream media accurately reported the role of severe weather in coral bleaching, they overemphasised rising temperatures and portrayed it as the sole cause. They avoided warning statements from scientists, such as climate change could be human-driven. This practice could confuse the audience into believing the scenario is part of a natural cycle. What constitutes the rising temperature? The media failed to deliver and elaborate on the worth-noting factors of coral bleaching, including overtourism, overfishing, and contamination. In reality, environmental researchers found that 99 per cent of the scientists agreed on the role of human activity.
In the case of extreme events, such as flooding, journalists are responsible for guiding scientists to provide accurate scientific statements in the role of professional reporting. Headlines such as ‘corals dying’ create scepticism, making journalists less accountable. There needs to be more robust statements on the impacts of climate change on extreme events to encourage the public to plan for weather and climate extremes in the context of global warming. Local newspapers should also provide more comprehensive coverage of expert recommendations and climate control information.
These kinds of environmental disasters are the aftermaths of unsustainable practices. Therefore, false balance in climate reporting is not just a matter of journalistic ethics; it has real consequences. Journalism has the power to help social reckoning and call for policy reform, but dramatic or hasty reporting gives a false sense of “climate change is just a myth” and inhibits critical policy responses, creates confusion about the causes of climate change, and prevents the public from recognising the urgency of taking climate action.
So, how much do we care?
The Digital News Report: Australia 2024 highlighted a significant issue in the media—news consumers do not get what they want from the news because of the sorely lacking coverage on climate change. This gap in reporting is especially problematic as concerns about climate change become more polarised. News stories related to climate change only appeal to half of Gen Z, who are easily confused by misinformation, while the older generations remain unenlightened.
Mainstream media, such as the ABC and the Guardian, are sensitive to claims of impartiality. Journalists are becoming more cautious in advocacy statements that may hinder biased opinions, especially as reporting on climate change has transitioned from being solely a scientific issue to encompassing the political, social, legal, and economic realms. Although evident-based news media, such as The Conversation, report on in-depth scientific research to increase public understanding of climate change, the 2024 report shows that The Conversation sits in the lower quartile of popularity.
As climate change becomes more urgent, sympathetic environmental values are making it harder for journalists to strive to be rigorous and deliberate in presenting the potential future impacts or risks of climate change and calling for sensory reform from the government. The traditional media ethics of impartiality will remain a means of acquiescing to climate change denial. News media should delve into questions about climate risk reduction and urge the locals to engage in climate action by guiding experts and politicians to amplify the message.
I’m a student journalist who loves sarcastic jokes because I watch too much Friends.
