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 School of Geography and the Environment

What next for climate change reporting?

Panel discussion, Friday 26 February 2010, the Halford Mackinder lecture theatre, Oxford University Centre for the Environment, 5.00 – 6.30 pm.

To register for this event, visit: www.bookwhen.com/eci Book Online
Please bring your booking email to the event to gain entry.

The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ), the School of Geography and Environment and the Environmental Change Institute (ECI) at Oxford University, and the British Council Climate Change Programme are bringing together several of the UK’s most influential environment correspondents to discuss the challenges of climate change reporting in the coming months:

  • David Adam, The Guardian, Environment Correspondent
  • Richard Black, BBC News website, Environment Correspondent
  • Fiona Harvey, Financial Times, Environment Correspondent
  • Ben Jackson, The Sun, Environment Correspondent

Chair: Fiona Fox, Director, Science Media Centre

Among the key issues to be addressed are:

  • In the light of the weak political agreement reached in Copenhagen, will the science of climate change be obscured in 2010 by reporting the international diplomacy? How should the media keep the science at the forefront of the coverage?
  • What are the key issues that the media should report on the row over the hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia ("Climategate")?
  • Surveys suggest that the public in the UK seems to be becoming more sceptical about the science of climate change: should the media give more voice to sceptics or ramp up the voice of scientists?
  • Polar bears, melting ice, floods in Bangladesh have come to frame media representations of climate change. What’s new and fresh to keep the public’s interest? Is fear-based messaging a turn-off? And if so what is the alternative?
  • Is "new media" engagement with climate change fundamentally altering the future of environmental reporting? What is the role of the traditional print media?
  • Are some media in danger of becoming too much like campaigning organisations (for example, the Guardian’s 10:10 campaign)? Does that undermine their credibility? If media become too close to some NGOs, how does this affect their role as independent commentators?

To register for this event, visit: www.bookwhen.com/eci Book Online Please bring your booking email to the event to gain entry.

Enquiries about registration to events@eci.ox.ac.uk

Other enquiries to james.painter@politics.ox.ac.uk

Event organisers

  • Paddy Coulter, Director, Oxford Global Media
  • Paul Jepson, Course Director, MSc Nature, Society and Environmental Policy, School of Geography and the Environment;
  • James Painter, Head of Journalism Fellowship Programme, RISJ