#4 How does climate change click - KOMPAS with Mark Blach-Ørsten
There's only room for one top story at a time.
Imagine you are the editor of a news site and you have to choose between the headlines "How warm spring will be" or "Climate ministers from around the world to meet in Denmark", which one would you choose? Because if you're honest, which article would you click on?
And having to prioritize climate coverage, knowing that it's hard to generate traffic around that subject area, is one of the toughest problems facing the media right now.
Mark Blach-Ørsten is a media researcher, author, PhD and head of the journalism program at Roskilde University and his research includes media coverage of the climate. We ask him if climate journalism has to be more fun, easier and better than all other journalism if media users are to take the plunge.
"Climate is a complicated topic, but there are also other complicated topics. I think there's a tendency to pigeonhole some topics and call them more difficult than others."
But in reality, we don't need to make the climate more complicated than that when it comes to journalism, he says:
"Climate is also just consumption, climate is also politics, climate is also just shopping, climate is also just your travel habits. Climate is actually many things that already exist and that's probably the way to think about it."
He also notes that it is actually possible to create focus on the climate, even without starting by talking about the weather. This applies, for example, to the critical coverage of Lars Løkke Rasmussen's controversial wind turbine project, or when an actor like Greta Thunberg takes the stage and creates debate.
In Bjarne Corydon's shoes
But we need to think outside the box and create new and different formats if people are to be activated. According to Mark Blach-East, it's hard for communication that consists only of ice-cold facts and a big raised forefinger to gain traction:
"Learning meets resistance, and if people have to change their habits, people resist. Habits are some of the most ingrained things we humans have. And if you have to change it, it takes a while. So that's why it will never be easy."
This is a particular challenge for public service media, as covering man-made climate change is a central core task for them. This month, Bjarne Corydon was appointed as the new Director General of DR, and we asked Mark Blach-Østen how he would approach climate journalism if he were in Corydon's shoes. Blach-Østen's advice is to scale back his ambitions for ratings and dare to both experiment and go in-depth with the climate topic.
And when he is finally, in typical media fashion, asked to summarize his points in a headline, he replies:
"Remember that climate needs to be in all the journalism you do. And if you don't, you need a good reason not to include it."