New Delhi: The issue of climate change and its devastating effects couldn't have found a more vociforus and a better platform of concensus than a workshop on Cool Reporting on Hot Issues.
The Canadian High Commission, in association with the Women’s Feature Service, organised an interactive workshop entitled Media and Climate Change: Cool Reporting on Hot Issues. This was the seventh edition in a series of media workshops organized to promote a better understanding of the role of media in the contemporary global environment.
Jess Dutton, Deputy High Commissioner, Canadian High Commission, commenced the day’s proceedings speaking on Climate Change – a Priority for Canada. He emphasised that the science was clear: climate change was real, it was caused by human beings, and was happening now. Year after year, our planet was getting warmer, sea levels were rising, wildlife was being impacted, and communities all over the world were feeling the effects of climate change. It was affecting “our health, our economies, and our very way of life”.
The Canadian government was taking strong action to address climate change and grow a “clean economy”. In December 2015, Canada played a positive role in Paris to help reach a historic, ambitious, and balanced agreement to fight climate change, and along with India ratified the Paris Agreement. He stressed on the media’s role to not only create awareness among the masses, but also encouraging governments to form environmental-friendly policies.
Matt Friesen, Counsellor & Head, Advocacy Program, facilitated the day-long session.The workshop was attended by forty five participants, including journalists from India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Twenty three guest speakers, including journalists, experts and activists participated in the six sessions on climate change and media. Norman Sacuta, Communications Director, Petroleum Technology Research Centre, Canada, shared his country’s experience in the context of climate change. These sessions deliberated on the following issues and were followed by interaction with the panelists.
In the first session, panelists debated whether media coverage of climate change was balanced. Moderated by Bharati Chaturvedi, founder and director of Chintan, the session had Nitin Sethi, senior associate editor of Business Standard, and Kanchi Kohli, researcher and writer, sharing their views on balance in coverage. Sethi mentioned that most of the coverage on global negotiations was covered by journalists from developed nations and carried in other countries. Kohli felt that there was space in the media to present factual, well-researched stories on climate change. Participants shared their concern over the lack of inclusiveness in media coverage of climate change issues.
In the second session on media coverage– perspective from outside India, Rakhee Bakshee, Director, WFS, facilitated the discussion with Mr. Norman Sacuta (Canada); Ms. Sulochana Ramiah Mohan (Deputy Editor News, Lakbimanews, Sri Lanka); Md Abu Bakar Siddique (Dhaka Tribune, Bangladesh); and Harigovinda Shrestha (Nepal Television, Nepal). Bakshee, pointing out the lack of women in the discourse on climate change, asked the speakers to share how their respective country media provided space to stories on the issue.
The session on sources for reporting on climate change and environment was moderated by Bijayalaxmi Nanda, an academician, with Savita Hiremath, a blogger, and journalists Chetan Chauhan (senior associate editor, Hindustan Times) and Rohan Singh, (correspondent, CNBC Awaaz), as the speakers. Chauhan lamenting that most of the research was sourced from the West and was biased and not highly credible, mentioned that local people, institutions and NGOs could provide credible information.
As a blogger, Hiremath was practicing what she was reporting on her blog, Endlessly Green, and given her expertise enjoyed credibility among her readers. She believed in going out and collecting information on her own. Singh mentioned that resources posed more problems, than sources for stories on climate change. Journalists usually did not have time to cross check the facts, besides there were pressures from lobbyists and PR groups as well as advertisers.
Vinay Kumar (Editor, Indiansaga.com) moderated the session on media’s role in creating awareness on climate change, with Urmi Goswami(special correspondent, The Economic Times); Norman Sacuta; Nivedita Khandekar (independent journalist working on water, environment and climate change); and Himangshu Watts (Editor-Energy, The Economic Times) as the speakers.
Kumar mentioned that there was certain degree of acceptance of climate change issues with national dailies sending reporters to cover the Marrakesh conference. Watts talked about the emergence of green concern in politics with initiatives like odd-even cars running on alternate days in Delhi. He pointed out to the lack of comprehensive studies.
Khandekar mentioned that while there was need to reach out to the scientific community, on a positive note there was proliferation of independent journalists writing on environment. On climate change issues, Goswami stressed, out-of-the-box thinking was required since everyone had an opinion on these matters.
The fifth session on scientific facts vs human interest stories was moderated by Aditi Kapoor (Director, Alternative Futures), with Bahar Dutt (environmental editor, CNN-IBN), Dinesh Sharma (columnist and writer), and Manish Anand (senior special correspondent, The New Indian Express) as the panelists. Sharma mentioned that the challenge before science reporters was that new evidences were coming out every day. Dutt stressed on the need to educate the editors on climate change and to bring together the scientific facts and the human interest angle of the story. Anand spoke about focussing on marketing of stories on climate change and communicating in simple language.
The last session of the day was on the impact of new age media on reporting on climate change, moderated by Norman Sacuta. Meenakshi Arora (Managing Editor, India Water Portal-Hindi); Sanjoy Hazarika (Director, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative); and Chandra Bhushan (Deputy Director General, Centre for Science and Environment) were the panelists for the session. Arora, Managing Editor of India water portal, which focuses on water, sanitation and hygiene issues, finds it easier to communicate to her audiences in Hindi through the portal. She mentioned that though climate change issues were global, there was a need for a local connect and the social media provided that opportunity.
Chandra Bhushan felt that the media had failed to connect climate change with people. Regarding the social media, he mentioned that while it had a global reach, it was rhetorical, insular and targeted, providing instant gratification. Sanjoy Hazarika felt that social media was an extremely powerful tool, and the new medium could influence the old media and vice versa.
Friesen closed the workshop with a vote of thanks to all the participants, experts and journalists.
