From climate attitude to climate action

Lets figure out how journalism can move the audience from climate attitude to climate action, for the benefit of both the media industry, democracy and the climate.

For the next year I will be spending my time trying to figure out how we in the media can help empower people when it comes to climate change. — Please reach out to me, if you think we can help each other solve this problem.

Illustration: Jon Kudelka

We already know it — research has told it bluntly for decades. The globe needs us to make an effort if the climate is to continue to form a framework for a world in which humanity can thrive.

Most of us know that we must reduce CO2, consume with care and leave a world for our children and grandchildren that gives them at least as good opportunities as we ourselves have had. Yet it is difficult to move both society as a whole and the individual from climate change to climate action.

Politicians are in doubt about what is enough and right, and citizens are in such different places as in climate denial, where one ignores research, to live in climate anxiety, where one opts out of having children because one is not sure if there will be a good world to leave to one’s successors.

Our society lacks a unifying actor who can inform, engage and inspire us to deal with the climate crisis we are all in.

The media is the obvious place to turn to for a solution to just this.

But also in the Danish media workplaces, it is difficult to handle the climate agenda. The climate is global, it is changing slowly, the development is infinitely complex, and quite a few have a real understanding of and experience in communicating the climate to the general public.

Therefore, we need inspiration for how we as a media can cover the climate area in a way that the audience finds interesting. The industry can look into a present and future where climate becomes a central part of almost every journalists’ area of ​​coverage. Whether it’s politics, transport, business, social policy or something completely different, climate is part of the agenda. Climate is not just a topic that a single climta-journalist can cover. It is a recurring theme that the vast majority of journalists will deal with professionally.

Therefore I am so happy, that I with help from Center for journalism at University of Southern Denmark, I can spend a year gathering existing knowledge and experience from the industry in general, test the best results in a Danish context and from this create a clear approach to the climate issue available to all interested journalists and editors.

The project “From climate attitude to climate action” will in this way help to find answers to how the media industry can handle the world’s most important history.

We are on the verge of the abyss — FNs generalsekretær, António Guterres

Climate change is the number one issue facing humanity, Præsident, USA, Joseph Biden

We are at the edge with climate change, and the time to take action is now — Pope Frans.

It does not lack strong statements from powerful people. Nevertheless, there is broad agreement that development is not going fast enough. There is too much attitude and too little action. Journalism can be one of the keys to changing that. Through this project, I want to explore how the media can approach this difficult topic in a way that both informs and engages.

Procedure:

The fellowship will be extended over a year, equivalent to full time for half a year. In this way, it will be possible to examine the status and from there initiate, follow and conclude a concrete test of the best current approaches to the climate issue in a Danish context.

I imagine the following approach:

1. - Theory

Examine what others are doing. What has been written about on the research side and what works in practice.

I want to gather the clearest conclusions that currently exist on the success of climate journalism.

1. Practice

After collecting the best examples, I will through a close collaboration with Fyens Stiftstidende and TV2Fyn test a selection of the most successful methods in a Funen context. Funen is unique in the context that it is a delimited area that it is possible to test and measure. In addition, a story has already been established to collaborate across media houses. Through Media City Odense, which supports the project, it will also be possible to anchor knowledge sharing, etc. to other interested parties.

1. Collection

The test will be followed by a quantitative and qualitative study of the practice efforts among the people of Fyn, respectively. This will take place through a questionnaire survey sent out via Fyens Stiftstidende’s reader panel and TV2Fyn’s panel, respectively, and in addition through focus group interviews before, during and after the test has been completed.

1. - Output

As an output, the fellowship will be completed with, respectively:

• Teaching courses for SDU’s cand public students in nano-module format.
• Presentation for SDU’s journalism students, where they get inspiration on how to successfully cover the climate crisis successfully elsewhere.
• Development of in-service training course for journalists:How to cover the climate crisis so that your audience moves from having a climate attitude to understanding where they can practice climate action. The course will, after the completion of the fellowship, be offered through Mediernes Efteruddannelse, and will thus be available to the entire media industry.
• Development of workplace courses: How to get started with an engaging coverage of the climate area in your workplace. The course is held with editors at the same workplace. The journalists are dressed up with concrete knowledge about the climate, and about the best experiences from other media. Then, based on the knowledge gathered, they are helped to develop their own journalistic climate approach.
• Conference: The role of the media in inspiring people to move from climate change to climate action. At the conference, the fellowship’s conclusions will be presented in collaboration with relevant speakers who can best equip the media industry to cover the climate crisis.
• White Paper: How to cover the climate crisis so that the audience is both enlightened and inspired. The publication will be a collection from the fellowship — it will include a number of specific formats that can be implemented in the traditional journalistic coverage of the topic.

Project plan:

The project “From climate attitude to climate action” will run over a year starting in August 2022 and ending with teaching module, conference, publication and course development in June 2023.

Focuspoints

1. Level of knowledge; Both journalists and the public are generally not equipped with enough knowledge to seriously understand the extent and consequences of climate change. This is a problem for the democratic approach to the subject. Therefore, I see it as essential to find ways to increase the level of knowledge.

For the journalists, my goal will concretely be to develop a teaching module in nano-format that can be accessed at University of Southern Denmark — and in the long term as continuing education for journalists in general and as an offer of a workplace course. Here, the goal is to do it in collaboration with the Center for Sustainability at SDU.

In relation to increasing the level of knowledge among the media audience, I will examine the approaches of other media, but also other industries to this. Specifically, it can result in examples of gamification of knowledge — which, for example, The Guardian and the Financial Times are successful with.

1. User interest; It is generally difficult to capture the interest of readers in covering the climate area. Here I will explore how to draw insights from the general coverage into the climate coverage so that it is not only a topic that attracts those who are already preoccupied with the topic, but also hits broadly. It can, for example, be by investigating how to take a concept like “The City’s Best”, which gathers great interest through polls about who should have the title as the City’s Best Burger Bar, etc. — And use the concept to gather people for polls about, who has the City’s Best Climate initiative. — It can be a competition among the municipality’s workplaces, schools, family, associations, etc. It can also be by looking at how, for example, the work with the case narrative can work in climate coverage, etc.
2. Commitment; How do we engage citizens in a democratic conversation about how we are shifting our lifestyles in a more sustainable direction. Here, through desk research and company visits, I will look at what succeeds elsewhere, and at TV2Fyn and Fyens Stiftstidende test the best examples. It can be, for example, climate citizen meetings as with Tortoise or the use of Hearken in the climate field as with the BBC or through case stories about people who make a difference. Here, research shows that this very approach inspires and engages others to act on their attitude to the climate.
3. Economy: Denmark is a pioneer in the field of the environment and has for several decades had many entrepreneurs and companies that have had the environment as a driving force in their business. The area has great focus from, among others, politicians and investors, but less from the media. The enormous transformation in the coming years also requires a popular dissemination of new technologies and an understanding of what we as citizens must do to act for the benefit of the environment. In my project, I will therefore also investigate how climate coverage can be financed in alternative ways.

Desired result:

The climate crisis is undeniably one of the biggest crises our society has been affected by in recent years, and as far ahead as we can see. But in the newsrooms, we are still in doubt about how we can best handle the subject. The changes are often slow and complicated to explain.

The media industry seeks answers on how we convey a complex area in a way that engages our audience, and how we succeed in covering the climate area, so that journalism both informs and engages the audience and lets the media be unifying in the dialogue about how sustainable life can be lived as best as possible. If the media succeeds, the topic will help to both attract and retain a loyal audience.

The project must therefore form an overview of the results of the climate journalism that succeeds in engaging the audience in the debate on how we together transform our society in a more sustainable direction.

The goal of the fellowship is therefore to equip the media industry as a whole with knowledge of how we cover the climate area in the best possible way for the benefit of both democracy, media and climate.

Partners:

This project will in addition to the Center for Journalism be carried out in collaboration with Fyens Stiftstidende, TV2Fyn, Media City Odense.

Why me?

• More than 20 years of experience in the industry, the last 15 years working with development projects in the media industry. Extensive experience in devising, developing, implementing projects with a strong focus on subsequently anchoring the results.
• Among other things. Editorial Development Manager, JFM, Digital Development Manager Funen Media, steering group member NxtMedia and NODA.
• One of the most experienced experts in constructive and engaging journalism. Over the last three years, I have focused exclusively on developing strategy, processes and concrete journalism that engage the audience in working to solve the problems that are important for them to solve.
• Among other things. author of the textbook “from tower to square — the journalist’s role in the involving and constructive journalism”, has made strategy courses in this area for, among others; Fyens Stiftstidende, NRK and SydØstran.
• Extensive experience with teaching and dissemination to both journalists and target groups outside the media industry.
• More: Founder and author of the teaching course “MOVE your world” — teaching course for high schools, teacher at SDU and DMJX, teacher of continuing education for journalists, organizer of a number of conferences.

I am equipped with many years of experience in carrying out successful projects and getting the results communicated so that the conclusions are anchored in a future practice.

And then I’m passionate about this project. I basically believe in journalism as an absolutely crucial element in the successful development of our democracy. With the climate challenge centrally rooted in our time, I can not imagine anything more meaningful to work for than contributing to how journalism can help solve the world’s biggest problem right now.

If you feel the same way, I hope you will reach out to me. — The more we are, the bigger the the chance for success will be.

Best regards from

Gerd Maria May

gerdmay@gmail.com