Tips to localize climate coverage, rebuild trust with readers

Joe Davis of the Society of Environmental Journalists offers tips for localizing the climate-change story, along with reporting resources. Most are questions, including these:

• Does your locality have laws, rules or policies that push electrification of heating and cooking in new homes? Does your state have laws that forbid localities from doing this?
• You probably have one or more solid waste facilities (typically, regulated landfills) taking wastes from your area. Landfills emit a lot of methane, a major greenhouse gas. How do your landfills manage methane — if they do at all?
• Is your state or locality friendly or unfriendly toward nonfossil sources of energy? The answer may be complex. For example, Texas, which loves oil and gas, is also a leader in wind energy. What is your state’s stance toward wind, solar, geothermal and other sources?
• What do your state and local governments (or public utilities commission) do to encourage rooftop solar? So-called feed-in tariffs pay homeowners for the excess electricity they put back into the grid. Are the rules and rates encouraging or discouraging to homeowners?
• Regional electricity grids do a lot to encourage or discourage green energy. What limits does your regional grid place (purposely or otherwise) on nonfossil electricity?

Rebuilding trust: Writing for What's New In Publishing, Peter Houston notes that news-media headlines "have grown significantly more negative over the past two decades. Research conducted by library journal PLoS One showed headlines expressing anger were up 104% since the year 2000; fear, 150% and sadness 54%. Feeding the outrage engine with emotive headlines in pursuit of short-term traffic gains is having a negative long-term impact on the media’s ability to engage with audiences. It is also adding to the polarization that has defined public debate recently." Houston passes along suggestions from Nic Newman, lead author of the 2022 Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism:

• Make news content more accessible. Newman recommends avoiding jargon, offering more explanations and asking for and answering audience questions.
• Tell stories differently. Newman suggests finding more ways to cover difficult stories, providing hope or giving audiences ‘a sense of agency’ around stories like climate change. He says this may mean the adoption of solutions journalism as part of a mix of formats and content styles.
• Label opinion and avoid sensationalism.