The Guardian joins a major media initiative to combat the climate crisis
For a week this September, dozens of news organizations in the US and around the world will join forces to devote their front pages and airwaves to a critical but under-covered story: the global climate emergency.
This unique media collaboration, timed to coincide with landmark UN Climate Action Summit in New York, is the first initiative of Covering Climate Now, a project co-founded by The Nation and the Columbia Journalism Review, in partnership with The Guardian, which aims to kickstart a conversation among journalists about how news outlets can improve their coverage of the climate crisis.
The project, which is still welcoming additional media partners, announced an initial list of more than 60 partners today, representing every corner of the media landscape, all of whom have pledged to dedicate resources to climate coverage for the week starting 16 September and leading up to the UN Summit on 23 September. The partners include major TV networks (CBS News) , digital players (HuffPost, Vox, the Intercept, Slate), local newspapers (the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Minneapolis Star Tribune), public radio programs (Marketplace, The World) and many others.
Covering Climate Now launched in May at an event at Columbia Journalism School with dozens of newsroom leaders, including the legendary TV journalist Bill Moyers, who delivered the keynote. At the time, the co-founders of Covering Climate Now, Mark Hertsgaard of the Nation and Kyle Pope, editor-in-chief of Columbia Journalism Review, wrote an impassioned oped calling for change in how the media covers the climate crisis.
“At a time when civilization is accelerating toward disaster, climate silence continues to reign across the bulk of the US news media,” Hertsgaard and Pope wrote. “Especially on television, where most Americans still get their news, the brutal demands of ratings and money work against adequate coverage of the biggest story of our time.”
Partners in the September week of coverage will make their own editorial decisions about what stories to feature. All that’s required is for each outlet to make a good faith effort to increase the amount and the visibility of its climate coverage – to make it clear to their audiences that climate change is not just one more story but the overriding story of our time. The point is to give the climate story the attention and prominence that scientists have long said it demands so that the public and policymakers can make wise choices.
You can read more about the initiative here.