Challenges covering climate emergency
The challenges faced by journalists covering the climate emergency will be at the heart of a public symposium at Auckland University of Technology (AUT) next month.
The symposium, titled Framing the Emergency: Climate Journalism in Aotearoa New Zealand, will explore how journalists report on the climate crisis, what more they can do, and how more climate stories might be told.
Speakers will include leading journalists Eloise Gibson (RNZ), Marc Daalder (Newsroom), and Miriama Kamo (TVNZ).
Experts and activists in the line-up include Russel Norman (Greenpeace), Jessica Palairet (Lawyers for Climate Action), and Joe Nagera (Pacific Climate Warriors).
The symposium convenor, Professor Geoffrey Craig, said New Zealand climate journalists had a challenging job relating how the planetary crisis was impacting the nation.
They needed to “traverse the complexities of governmental policies and emission trading schemes, the power of corporations and the technicality of scientific research”, he said.
“They must cover the politics of land and water management, the advocacy of activists, and the struggles of citizens responding to disasters and building greater sustainability in their communities and everyday lives.”
Journalists also face the challenge of reporting independently on the “actions and discourses of stakeholders” who frame climate issues in different ways, based on their interests.
The climate emergency could be said to transforming our understanding of the relationships between economy, environment and society.
“Yet some might argue there is little sense of an ‘emergency’ in our public responses to the climate crisis,” he said.
“Do we need other climate stories in our media where the mahi and hope of communities point the way forward?”
The symposium on May 29 will be jointly hosted by two research centres at AUT’s School of Communication Studies – the Communication for Social Change Research Centre (CRC) and the Centre for Journalism Media and Democracy (JMAD).
It will be held at AUT’s city campus on May 29 from 10am to 4pm and will be open to the public. Tickets are available through Humanitix.