Friday 28 September 2012

European media have lost interest in international climate change conferences


The European Union still pretends to be the global warming "superpower" at various UN sponsored climate change/global warming conferences, telling and, in the case of airlines, forcing other countries to conform with their "progressive" climate legislation. However, European media have lost interest in these mega meetings, and in global warming in general. Even alarmist environment journalists now doubt "that a difference in climate change will emerge from a global forum like a UN summit":
For the 16 years preceding Cancun, more than 80 percent of the journalists reporting these  conferences came mainly from Europe, the US, Japan and Canada. But Cancun—otherwise known as COP16—saw a reversal of that dynamic, with 55 percent of the reporters from the Global South. This increased to 66 percent in Durban, while those from developed countries dwindled to 34 percent.
The decline of European media attendance is astonishing. European journalists have passed from representing the largest group at all the summits held until Copenhagen, to almost an endangered species. They have dropped from representing 60 percent of the attendance at Copenhagen, to 22 percent in Cancun and 19 percent in Durban. While a number of large developing countries, such as China, India, or Bangladesh, maintained their media presence after Copenhagen—even when expectations for an international agreement were much lower—European countries that traditionally sent a cohort of climate correspondents, such as France, Germany, Spain or the UK, drastically reduced their numbers.
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I interviewed seven experienced reporters working for mainstream outlets in Western European countries (Denmark, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom), all of whom used to attend climate summits until Copenhagen and now cover them from afar.
In addition to media organizations downsizing and making budget cuts, all their editors argued that as expectations were lower and there were fewer Heads of State attending Cancun or Durban, it was not worth spending money to send a correspondent abroad for at least a week.

In most of the outlets represented by these reporters, climate change coverage has seen a dramatic reduction in terms of copy and broadcast minutes, at least during the autumn period when these events take place. Additionally, the lack of interest by editors in climate negotiations has been accompanied by less interest in the subject of climate change in general during the rest of the year.
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None of the climate journalists I have talked to believe that a difference in climate change will emerge from a global forum like a UN summit, but more likely from action at the local level. 

Read the entire article here


The Spanish journalist, who wrote the article in the Columbia Journalism Review, is still a believer in the UN climate change/global warming propaganda, but her text gives a rather realistic view of the situation in European media. It is also apparent that also US media have lost interest in the UN global warming jamborees. Soon the only reporters attending will be those from "developing" countries, sponsored by governments hoping to cash in on the global warming hoax.


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