ClimateXchange to boost local climate reporting

A new global initiative ClimateXchange wants to create collaboration opportunities for local news organisations worldwide to help them reach and engage new audiences.

It also wants to focus on reporting on the local impact and solutions, and experimenting with new sustainability models for local climate journalism.

The project is a collaboration between Syli, a newly established UK non-profit and the IKEA Foundation.

[Read more: Upgrade your journalistic practices to tackle climate crisis]

"Despite a lot of great reporting being done it just isn’t being consumed by audiences on the scale that we would expect for such an important subject," Tom Trewinnard, Syli’s executive director, told Journalism.co.uk.

"This is where local news and broadcast are crucial: they have strong relationships of trust with their audiences, but they frequently lack money and access to expertise to cover a climate beat. They’re also reaching a very different audience to the large newsrooms who have been leading on experimenting with new approaches to climate reporting."

Trewinnard points to publishers like Will Media or Earthrise Studio that use Instagram to tell climate stories, showing that there is an audience appetite for this beat. A combination of local reporting and clever use of social media may help news organisations to reach new audiences beyond those already following environmental issues.

Syli founders Fergus Bell (left) and Tom Trewinnard

Inspiring without campaigning

Climate reporters face a conundrum. On one hand, the science is clear - we must take urgent action if we are to avert climate catastrophe. On the other, audiences tend to mistrust news if they are being told what to do or if they feel the journalist is pushing out an agenda.

"We engage audiences by telling fact-first stories about the impact of climate change and global heating on them, as well as the solutions that are available to them to create real change," says Trewinnard.

"Inspiration comes from knowing what action to take."

[Read more: Eight ways to nail climate emergency reporting]

He adds that although the science and data are bleak - and we need to tell that story - the research suggests that too much bleakness disengages people from the topic and leaves them disempowered.

But the situation is not hopeless.

"The challenge is how to explain the truly extraordinary transformation we need to go through to our audiences - a transformation that will impact almost every aspect of our lives if we are to succeed in achieving global climate goals.

"Newsrooms should see that as an opportunity - in the midst of these changes, as we saw with the covid-19 pandemic, service journalism plays a crucial and irreplaceable role."

Can climate journalism be sustainable?

News organisations often shy away from climate stories because there is a perception that this beat does not pay. ClimateXchange wants to look for ways to make climate journalism financially viable, be it through new products, formats, or by including climate in every other beat.

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