An initiative seeking to guide and coordinate climate coverage worldwide is telling journalists to frame the 2024 elections around climate policies..Covering Climate Now (CCNow), an initiative co-founded in 2019 by the Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation in association with The Guardian and WNYC-FM, now includes more than 460 partners in 57 countries whose total audience is two billion people. .CCNow’s latest email warns “climate change is the biggest news story of our time” and that the 2024 elections in the US, UK, EU, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and elsewhere “will profoundly affect humanity’s chances of preserving a livable planet.”.“Journalists need to start thinking now about how to provide elections coverage that (1) is grounded in science, and (2) gives voters the information they need to cast ballots wisely. CCNow has best practices and other resources that can get you up to speed,” the organization warns..This 'best practices' page includes “foundational facts” such as “Climate change is caused mostly by burning oil, gas and coal, and is driving more extreme heat waves, droughts, storms, and sea-level rise.”.Not mentioning this in a news piece leaves audiences “misinformed,” CCNow insists..The page says climate affects everything, so “good journalism” requires climate change coverage on every beat..“No matter what your specialty is — politics, business, health, housing, education, food, national security, entertainment, sports, you name it — there are strong climate connections to highlight.”.The email explained that “Reporters and editors on politics desks…[must] understand that climate science is unambiguous” and a “very rapid global phase out of oil, gas, and coal can keep it from getting much worse. Such a phase-out might seem economically infeasible, but…the economics get more dire the longer humanity waits to act decisively.".“Voters need to know about this science, and they need to know which candidates and parties will do something about it and which will not.”.The email said it was “essential” to frame election stories correctly and focus on the issues. It linked to an article by Dan Froomkin on Press Watch called “A desperate appeal to newsroom leaders on the eve of a chaos election.” His article interpreted “another potentially cataclysmic election in 2024” with stridently leftist rhetoric..“None of our newsroom leaders could possibly have imagined ten years ago that fascist appeals to violence and racial hatred would be so common and effective, that the political discourse would be so awash in misinformation and disinformation, that homophobia and misogyny would make such a dramatic comeback, or that a con man who engineered a failed coup could be a front-runner for the presidency, posing a dire threat to the country’s future as a democracy,” read the article’s opening paragraph..The email cited Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch, who argued that Trump’s plans to dismantle “the administrative state,” was something he called a “democratic norm.” He even suggested if Trump won next year’s US election “might also be the last.”.The email denied its recommended approach was “partisan” but insisted it “plainly” reported “facts.”.“Trump and nearly every Republican in Congress think that nothing should be done about the climate crisis except make it worse by burning lots more fossil fuels,” the email said..“Some traditional journalists might see stating the facts so plainly as partisan. But that mistakenly conflates politics with partisanship. Candidates are free to take whatever position they like on issues. Our job as journalists is to describe those positions accurately and fairly. Voters can decide for themselves what to do about it.”
