Stop balancing reporting! Capitalism is sneaking in climate change coverage
The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report has shown that there is scientific consensus that human impact is most likely the main cause of observed global warming since the mid-20th century. Nevertheless, we can still see the arguments for global warming denial not so long ago. Why do some people still insist that climate change is not caused by humans? Who gives the opponents a place to express their opinions? We can blame this on journalists’ balanced coverage.
There are different reasons why some people are still discussing that climate change is a hoax. Firstly, political and economic concerns are greater than environmental concerns for certain groups. Even if global warming is real, they still lie through their teeth for economic development and political stance. Take the US and China, as examples. According to the Pew Research Center, the Republication Party believes that more environmental protection measures would harm the US economy, and right-leaning media tend to present contrarian views of man-made global warming. On the other hand, the CFR has indicated that China has only recently started to actively formulate measures against global warming because it believed that solutions to global warming would bring disadvantages to its rapidly growing industry.
Additionally, journalists are important mediators that reflect and shape public opinions on this issue. Journalists are supposed to be impartial and objective and need to balance their reporting. These journalistic standards, however, are hard to implement in practice. According to communication scholars Preston and Silke, journalists are impacted by scientific evidence, bias, political and economic ideologies, and elite sources. The Boykoff brothers, researchers who are interested in climate change issues, also pointed out that balanced reporting can also be seen as a form of bias. As authors Brüggemann and Engesser, who specialize in communication, argued, journalists provide a forum for contrarian views and maintain public confusion about man-made climate change. Thus, journalists should not apply the norm of balance for climate change coverage.
The ideology of capitalism in climate change reporting
As what IPCC has shown, more than 97% of climate scientists believe that human factors are the main cause of climate change phenomena for half a century. Although there is a consensus in the academic community that global warming is caused by human activities, the capitalist ideology keeps popping up on the subject in the news and insists that environmental protection will hurt the country’s economy and reduce company profits. Some conservative media even use different framing, such as negative terms, to attack the policies for environmental protection or environmentalists.
This phenomenon is especially serious in the US. As McCright and Dunlap mentioned, conservatives argue that global warming is a socialist plot to undermine American capitalism and suspect that proposed solutions would do more harm than good. Take a look at the Breitbart News website, an American far-right news media. From the titles, we can see that it addresses climate change issues in a negative way. It also uses negative words to describe people who care about climate change, such as referring to them as extremists. Additionally, it blames the EU Green Deal for the European energy crisis. In the news article, the journalist used the words from Sylvia Limmer, a German MEP (Member of the European Parliament) that “the climate project is an ideology-driven monster” and that “the EU’s green policies have led to this mess in the first place” to indicate that the conflict on the Eastern border is not an excuse to push the green agenda further. By mentioning “Dr. Limmer” and “a number of MEPs”, the journalist supported the argument that the EU Green Deal is the cause of the energy crisis in Europe.
Have another look at Fox News, which is not nearly as far right as Breitbart News, but is seen as conservative news media by Pew Research Center. The language Fox News uses is less extreme, but we can still see a clear political and economic ideology from the titles of the articles. For example, it uses “radical” to describe the green agenda proposed by the ruling party, Democratic Party, and implies the agenda will increase the energy cost. Although it used the words said by Republicans, it still reveals its political and economic ideological bias by putting this in the title. In another report, the author used “disaster” to accuse the results of the green agenda for the “developing world”. Hence, we can see the ideology of capitalism is hidden in different interpretations of climate change.
What should journalists do?
Journalists cannot be absolutely objective because ideological bias is inevitable, and thus journalists use objective methods to present their reports to be as objective as possible, as journalists Kovach and Rosenstiel said. One of the professional norms is balanced coverage which makes people think of objectivity and fairness. However, Brüggemann and Engesser believe when it comes to issues of scientific consensus, balanced reporting no longer applies. Thus, journalists must look beyond the norm of balanced coverage to a more interpretive pattern of journalism.
How can journalists do to avoid conferring legitimacy and media status on opponents’ views, which may be used in politics or distort the issue of climate change? Firstly, since human-induced climate change is a scientific consensus, journalists should call those who challenge the climate change frame “contrarians”, instead of “skeptics” or “deniers”, as Brüggemann and Engesser emphasized. Moreover, journalists should be able to distinguish between the opinions provided by the authority and those provided by outliers without peer support. Lastly, the best way journalists can do is not to give the opponents any space to talk at all and take the approach of an interpretive report instead of balanced coverage.
