Our environmental content defeats greenwash, highlights fact, and, maybe, contributes to a sustainable future
By Giles Crosse From Reuters Community
t’s widely understood in today’s newsrooms that groundbreaking, intuitive and expert environmental reporting catalyzes debate, leadership and potentially, real world change.
But, poorly researched, factually flawed or misleading green news will not only damage all our tomorrows, but alienate key younger audiences who are so engaged with today’s ecological movement.
These are some of the reasons why Reuters journalists work daily to deliver the most compelling environmental investigations available.
Unique, inspirational, detailed
Our journalists recently won a Society of Environmental Journalists’ Award for Environmental Reporting for their work on Ocean Shock, a breathtakingly comprehensive look at the many factors that are harming our seas.
Our green stories are exhaustively reported, lucidly written and unfailingly gripping. This example is a vivid depiction of an ocean under cumulative stress from a multitude of sources; following the money to those stressors’ roots.
REUTERS/Anushree Fadnavis
Turning the tide; can quality journalism defeat greenwash?
Tom Skirrow is Director of Operations for Tree Aid, an NGO that helps people in the drylands of Africa lift themselves out of poverty and protect their environment. He spoke with Reuters about the interplay between audiences and compelling green journalism.
“The issue of environmental degradation in the midst of a climate crisis is key for young people, because it is they who will inherit these problems in years to come,” he begins.
“They recognize this is the single biggest issue facing our planet and want to see action to halt and reverse the damage already done. For young people in the drylands of Africa, the impacts of climate change are already taking a toll on their life chances and are set to get worse.
“With the increase in fake news it can be difficult to discern the real facts. It’s important that the scientific evidence from, for example, The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is reported widely and encourages people to make small simple changes such as reducing waste and planting more trees.”
REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan
Potent environmental coverage; a global advantage
Few other newsrooms match Reuters’ capacity, scale or skills to report globally, offering unique, differentiated, fast and accurate green investigations that drive both environmental conversations and millennial engagement.
For example: this Reuters Connect video and image package provided the entire content for a Guardian story on how a retired naval officer dove a submarine some 36,000ft into the deepest place on Earth, only to discover what appeared to be plastic.
Other Reuters journalists regularly travel to the ends of the Earth, taking part in months-long projects examining climate change in other places like Greenland.
Reporters like Lucas Jackson followed a team of scientists flying out of Iceland affiliated with a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) project named Oceans Melting Greenland, covering work to understand how warming oceans are melting the island’s ice from below.
REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
Greta’s global mission
And Greta Thunberg, the climate activist, granted one of only two exclusive interview slots to Reuters as the teen recently entered New York, prior to her powerful speech urging the UN and world leaders to act.
The fundamentals are: Reuters climate coverage will help your news organization reach wider, more trusting audiences with truly differentiated stories offering long term retention and engagement.
