Provide better and more information on the environment: more than 500 journalists from various media have individually signed a charter for “journalism commensurate with the ecological emergency”, inviting the profession to change its way of working. Made public on Wednesday after a summer marked by climatic disasters, the charter lists around ten commitments, to which around thirty editors have also subscribed, including 20 minutesRFI, France 24, Reporterrethe independent online media Green, Mediapart, Socialter or Nowua platform co-created by France Télévisions, as well as schools and associations representing the community.
Journalists are first encouraged to “deal with the climate, the living and social justice in a transversal way”, ecology should “no longer be confined to a simple heading” but “become a prism through which to consider the set of subjects”. “To do a work of pedagogy”, “to wonder about the lexicon and the images used”, so as to no longer see, for example, photos of children having fun in the water to illustrate deadly heat waves, are also part of the recommendations made by the text.
Making the link between disasters and climate change
To inform “on the origins of the upheavals in progress”, “the strategies” of the lobbies to “sow doubt” and “the responses to the crisis”, the reporters must also be able to “train continuously”, believe the signatories. And since “the climate emergency” concerns the entire population, newsrooms must green their practices by reducing their carbon footprint, opposing “funding from the most polluting activities” and “consolidating their independence”.
The result of several months of work combining journalists, experts and citizen groups, “the charter does not have the value of coercion, it is rather a kind of compass”, explains one of its instigators, Loup Espargilière, the creator of Green. Sign that the subject is in tune with the times, several media have recently raised the environment to the rank of priority, like Radio France, which announced a ” environmental turning point at the end of August, notably with a vast training plan for its teams.
“We are talking more and more about the climate”, rejoices Loup Espargilière, but “it remains really small, and a whole host of problems persist”. “This summer again, despite the multitude of subjects on drought and fires”, their link with global warming was “very rarely” recalled, according to him.