The climate emergency demands more and louder coverage—and that journalists be free to provide it.
The climate emergency demands more and louder coverage—and that journalists be free to provide it.
Journalism continues to be a dangerous profession around the world—and not just in war zones such as Ukraine. In the first quarter of this year, eight Mexican journalists were killed, marking one of the darkest periods for the Mexican press in recent memory. UNESCO, the agency within the United Nations that deals with media-related issues, has reported that, while journalist casualties in countries experiencing armed conflict have declined in recent years, fatal attacks against journalists covering stories related to corruption, human-rights violations, environmental crimes, trafficking, and political wrongdoing have risen in a number of other countries.
Such dynamics can, and do, intersect with coverage of our intensifying climate crisis. In December, Sasha Chavkin, of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, wrote about how the murders of environmental activists and the suppression of independent reporting in Nicaragua hampered coverage of environmental concerns. And such dynamics aren’t exclusive to Nicaragua: Many of the countries that have seen the most violence against environmental defenders in recent years also rank near the bottom of the World Press Freedom Index.
Shooting the messenger is, of course, an age-old reaction. These days, however, those who wish to silence journalists have a greater array of options beyond the bullet. As well as arbitrary arrest, detention, torture, and threats, journalists around the world can also face online abuse, smear campaigns, legal harassment, and computer and phone hacking. My colleagues at Al Jazeera have been on the receiving end of each of these intimidation tactics, even as we remain determined to do our jobs.
As journalists increasingly come under fire, so, too, is media freedom under siege in new ways. Some governments seek to criminalize good journalism as akin to spying or even supporting terrorism. There are governments which have found oblique ways to curtail freedom of expression under the guise of public health amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Such threats imperil journalists’ ability to cover the biggest story of our time: the onrushing climate emergency. Reporting that is accurate, factual, and impartial—the hallmarks of good journalism—is critical for society to be informed of the magnitude of the climate emergency and its solutions. Yet journalism cannot play this crucial civic role if our reporters are being killed, our offices bombed, and our freedom to publish and broadcast trampled.
Journalists play a key role in reporting the climate breakdown that we, as a species, are both causing and facing. The science around climate change and its consequences—a range of alarming phenomena including storms, floods, heatwaves, and droughts—is indisputable. Factual reporting and observational storytelling can help humanity to fully understand, acknowledge, and—hopefully—address the challenges posed by a warming planet.
The Covid-19 pandemic has shown the importance of the media’s taking a leading role in informing audiences about a global problem that has very direct and personal risks to everyone. Yet even the deaths and upheaval due to the coronavirus, while truly awful, pale in comparison to the potential consequences of climate change.
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