It was time. In 1990, the first report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported global warming, and the influence of human activities on the climate was then suspected. A fact confirmed thirty years later. However, it is only recently that the major TV channels have seemed to take a closer look at global warming to integrate it into their editorial line, with the appearance of new formats.
The IPCC often recalls in its reports the need to transmit information on climate issues and “the crucial role” that the media can play, this is also what associations are calling for. The news have a responsibility here: they brought together on average in 2022 between 4.5 and 5.2 million viewers for France 2 and TF1 and some 2.4 million each for M6 and France 3 in 2022, according to Médiamétrie.
For several months, Claire Morvan, president of More climate in the media, has seen “the best” in the television news. But “there are insufficient orders of magnitude, figures that allow us to contextualize, insufficient references to climate change, to its causes, that is to say to human activities emitting greenhouse gases”, notes she said, as with the poor coverage of the summary of the IPCC reports in March. As COP28 opens in Dubai on November 30, we look at the evolution of the treatment of the climate on TF1, France 2 and M6.
- The shock of summer 2022
With its record number of days of heat waves and the images of fires in Gironde, the summer of 2022 has hit the French, but also the editorial staff. For Thierry Thuillier, deputy general director of information for the TF1 group, if the theme was covered, “the editorial consequences had not been drawn in the sense that they needed to be given an impact. We published subjects in the newspapers, but without really giving them an educational meaning. And that’s what we wanted to change in September 2022,” he explains, taking stock of the first climate roadmap, on November 16.
On the France 2 side, a climate action plan has also been in place since September 2022. “This summer of 2022 was very edifying and we said to ourselves that we needed to give a boost to this desire to deal with global warming” , says Virginie Fichet, deputy editorial director in charge of climate at France Télévisions.
- New formats for talking about climate science
In the editorial offices, this also involved training journalists and strengthening teams. For the TF1 group, adaptation to climate change must be approached in a “positive” way, “by supporting the French”, “without making them feel guilty”, argues Thierry Thuillier. For a little over a year, TF1 has developed a new “signature” in its news, Our planetwhich brings together its climate reports, and a format, Augmented Earth, to project ourselves into 2030 or explain how global warming disrupts the water cycle, for example. The committee of scientific experts, created last year, has just been strengthened and must be called upon more.
Since March, on France 2 and France 3, the traditional weather bulletin has become the “Weather Climate Journal”, a format praised by the public and climatologists. It deciphers weather events based on climate science, a sequence allowing a scientist to directly answer viewers’ questions. “We are here to provide keys to understanding global warming,” emphasizes Virginie Fichet, “not to give lessons. People need to understand things and have it anchored in their daily lives. »
In May, M6 made a commitment, like TF1, to the French audiovisual watchdog, Arcom. Coverage of climate issues has “increased”, according to its information director, Stéphane Gendarme, thanks to the Responsible Planet section and a minimum subject per day in the 1245 or 1945, “with a real reference to the ecology”. At the start of the school year, the channel launched its “Instructive Weather” to decode climate developments, presented by Mac Lesggy. A choice which raised eyebrows due to the host’s climate insurance publications on social networks. Last summer, climatologist Valérie Masson-Delmotte reframed her remarks “out of step with the state of knowledge”. Stéphane Gendarme defends him by explaining that Mac Lessgy works with the editorial staff and that he brings “his scientific support and his very didactic side to the climate point”.
- Of the “ groping » and “ cognitive dissonance »
So everything’s OK ? No, replies the association More climate in the media, which will release an assessment of the climate coverage of extreme events between June and September 2023 on TF1 and France 2. “And 327 reports later, the summer of 2023 will not have not been the long-awaited and announced media turning point,” notes Claire Morvan. For the association, exclusively factual reports, on disaster victims or “saviors” like firefighters take too important a place when the impact of human activities and the capacity to act to limit warming are insufficiently highlighted. “What is missing in news is giving people the ability to act, to make a difference,” she regrets.
The association also criticizes the lack of in-depth examination of the subjects, such as the “incriminating and without proof” reporting on environmental activists, broadcast on November 21 on France 2. Or in October on the contestation of the A69 motorway project between Toulouse and Castres, followed from the angle of opposition between law enforcement and activists. Other avenues could have been explored, she believes: questioning the coherence between public policies and decarbonization or giving a voice to scientists opposed to the project. Questioned on the A69 on November 14, Virginie Fichet said she could “hear” these criticisms, but recalled that in a news report, you have to get to the point.
More climate in the media also notes “trial and error” on TF1, citing a plateau on a project to capture CO2 to trap it in the seabed, presented without order of magnitude in January 2023. “For us, this kind of reporting supports denialist and reassuring speeches which say that there will be nothing to change in our lives, points out Claire Morvan. While, on France 2, a report on the same subject explained that the capture technology was still inefficient. »
She still notes “cognitive dissonance”. An example ? In the 8 p.m. news on TF1 on November 13, a report clearly explains the influence of global warming on the jet stream and its impact on flooding in the North. Then, in the process, Gilles Bouleau rejoices in “good news”, launching a subject on the drop in fuel prices. “On the one hand it is explained that climate change will make our lives much more complicated,” she analyzes. And, on the other hand, there is the promotion of an unsustainable lifestyle. » “These are the contradictions of French society,” defends Thierry Thuillier. Our role is to tell this story, we are not going to judge. »
Despite some “good educational formats”, the association regretted a lack of information concerning the COP27 negotiations a year ago on the three channels. A position still defended by TF1 for that of Dubai: “We are not going to talk about the internal bickering from day to day, that in no way helps the public to be informed and mobilized”, believes Thierry Thuillier. M6 and France 2 plan to illustrate the issues in their news. On TF1, a cumulative twenty minutes of air time will be devoted to the COP, with a new episode in augmented reality returning to the 19th century, at the start of the industrial era. Enough to make the link between human activities, CO2 emissions and climate change.