Ensia

Something I find pretty shocking and disturbing, and I'll explain why in a minute, is that neither funders in the climate space nor most climate orgs seem to understand the difference between journalism and comms/advocacy, or why it's important to have both. They think absolutely nothing of just replacing journalists with comms people; in fact, most seem to think that would be preferable. Here's the basic difference: while both are types of communicators, journalists are expected to work according to some basic rules -- they should pursue knowledge, the truth, with rigor and without an agenda; they should be able to show their work; they speak to everyone; and they should be transparent about their funding and backers. Comms people should be accurate too, of course, but they can take a little more license with storytelling and they unabashedly have an agenda. Climate advocacy funders tend to feel uncomfortable with the lack of control afforded them by traditional journalism; they might want to know that what you're covering dovetails with what they're campaigning for, for example, or they may want to stop you from publishing something that harms that campaign. So I can see why there's this pull for them towards a sure thing: a comms operation that will play ball, rather than a truly independent newsroom that might publish things they don't particularly like on occasion. Here's why I see this as a problem: 1. according to the IPCC, the number one way people learn about climate is through the media. That means the media needs to do a good job AND the public needs to trust the media to tell the truth, no strings attached. 2. every *single* time I have ever gone to do archival research after an NGO or an academic researcher has already been there (and in many cases told me there's nothing left to be found), I have found dozens of things that I think are interesting and useful to the public. 3. When I've written about those things, a lot of times it has actually opened up another avenue for campaigning too. 4. While I might have similar ideas to a foundation or NGO about what should be done on climate, my job is different. I explained my approach to someone recently as basically setting out to prove myself wrong. Because when I say something publicly I want to know *for sure* that I have all the receipts to back it up. And again, that doesn't take anything away from campaigns or comms strategies, or academic research or litigation, it adds to all of them. These are symbiotic roles, but they are being treated as duplicative and thus competitive. I am increasingly seeing climate funders who are interested in media fund campaigners cosplaying as journalists, or fund newsrooms with so many strings attached that they wind up having to cover something that is not where the reporting actually leads them. This is not supporting journalism! I don't even think it's particularly smart strategic comms. Who does this serve? Certainly not the public.