Can we adapt our news values to help address climate change?

If you like writing, one of the first career pathways that might come to mind is journalism.

Take a media studies or journalism course, however, you soon realise that journalism is about a lot more than just writing.

What journalists write about, how they write it, what makes it to the front page – all of this has significant influence. It has the power to shift perspectives, to amplify certain issues and downplay others.

There’s a lot going on in the world and not all of it makes the news.

In other words, journalists have real power in addressing the climate crisis. They can shape the conversation, guide our thinking, and make the issue more mainstream.

The challenge is how to do this in a way that both engages audiences and is evidence-based. There are barriers to this – as the European Broadcasting Union notes, doing it right requires training and time, for newsrooms that are often already stretched. In addition, there are perceived challenges related to climate change as a subject, such as too much ‘doom and gloom’ for readers or the topic being particularly complex.

While I think it’s important to acknowledge that these barriers exist, I don’t think it should deter journalists from taking up the challenge.

Moving away from the “climate change as science reporting” preconception could be helpful here. If journalists don’t feel confident writing on the science, they could write about it in relation to their “beat” or what they are confident in, whether that be education, or economics.

Given its importance as a topic, I think there is also license to treat climate change slightly differently from other coverage, taking the time to learn more about doing it effectively and considering different news values.

A book I highly recommend is “Effective Climate Communication” by Anastasia Denisova. In it, Denisova takes the 12 traditional news values which are used to gauge “newsworthiness” and replaces them with 10 alternatives for climate reporting. Some of these are similar to the traditional news values, others are more like new additions.

For context, here are the 12 traditional news values:

• Impact – how affected people are by an event
• Timeliness – whether the situation is current
• Fame and prominence – if someone well known is involved
• Proximity – if it’s local
• Conflict and tragedy – if it bleeds, it leads
• Oddity – how unusual the story is
• Trending – the popularity of an existing story
• Currency – if it relates to an ongoing issue or topic of public conversation
• Human interest – making it personal
• Continuity – if it’s already in the news
• Progress – breakthroughs and milestones
• Exclusivity and uniqueness – if it’s not available somewhere else

And here are Denisova’s alternatives for climate reporting:

1. Bad news
2. Frequency, but contextualised through showing the patterns (such as the increased probability of natural disasters)
3. Positive action/good news
4. Emotional offsets – more “light” material in relation to the subject, to offset the shade
5. Innovation
6. Awe
7. Cultural relatability – finding common ground
8. Entertainment and lifestyle novelties
9. Mid-level activity and solutions – “communities, businesses and industries that come together to tackle climate change”
10. Empowerment

I think these are a great starting point in thinking about angles for climate reporting. Being evidence-based also means being evidence-based in your approach to climate reporting and what will appeal to readers, which is why books like Denisova’s are such an important resource.

Maybe there’s some, in looking at these 10 alternative news values, or even the 12 traditional ones, that you can think of that would appeal to you.

Some stories that would appeal to me personally include:

• Stories about inspiring individuals working in the field, how they got into it and why it matters to them.
• Stories about innovative, promising solutions, particularly if accompanied by visuals that motivate you to imagine and advocate for eco-futures. These could be balanced out with the pros and cons of the initiatives, how tested they are if in the early stages, etc.
• Stories that show the connections to different spheres, why sustainability/climate awareness matters within these, and how people from diverse occupations are making a difference.
• Stories that motivate you to act democratically in support of addressing climate change, such as those about how a particular proposed initiative will have a positive or negative climate impact.

There is also opportunity to consider how these values, or potentially even different values, apply to digital news formats such as TikTok, YouTube and Facebook.

In essence, I believe there is a real opportunity for journalists to be leaders in this space – to take up the challenge of one of the most important subjects of our time and make it engaging, relatable and motivating for readers. To find new angles and ways of thinking about this issue. To embody the spirit of “rational hope” that we need to fix this, in the words of atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe. ‘

If there are any journalists reading this, I hope that you take up the challenge. I’ll definitely be cheering you on.