Journalists urged to report objectively on climate change

A leading Indian climate expert has urged journalists to improve their reporting of environmental issues by thoroughly investigating and analysing new scientific research.

Dr Govindarajan Srinivasan, Director of the India Meteorological Department, spoke to journalists at a workshop on media and environmental issues which took place in New Delhi, India, from 7 to 12 April 2008.

“Every [scientific] intervention has to be properly researched before we take it up, and the media can play a big role in how people perceive these [environmental] issues and in influencing government policy,” he said in response to a question from a Kenyan journalist.

Dr Srinivasan stressed that journalists should not take new scientific research on climate change and other environmental threats as gospel truth, but should endeavour to educate people by also exploring differing viewpoints and alternative perspectives and debates.

There are currently many uncertainties related to climate change predictions, particularly with regard to the timing, magnitude, and regional patterns, which he said need to be analysed together rather than in isolation.

“There are changes that are happening, and at a scale that can aggravate into severe problems in the future, so there is a need to be concerned. But environmental issues are very complex because they are all interlinked, and cannot be analysed in isolation,” he cautioned.

Citing India as an example, he said research data collected over the years shows annual mean temperatures consistently above normal, with 2006 documented as the warmest year in the country’s history since 1901. Dr Srinivasan added, however, that the rise in temperatures, both in India and globally, cannot be solely attributed to any one cause but a combination of different factors, which journalists must endeavour to spell out in their reporting.

The Commonwealth Secretariat and the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) in New Delhi jointly convened the workshop, with funding provided by the Commonwealth Media Development Fund. Dr Sunetra Narayan, a senior lecturer at the IIMC; Adolf Emmanuel Mbaine, an environmental journalism specialist from Makerere University in Uganda; Richard Mahapatra, a research expert at the Centre for Science and the Environment in India; and Krishnendu Bose, a conservationist and film-maker, were the other key resource persons at the workshop.

Secretariat Links:

• Commonwealth Media Development Fund
• Sustainability
• Country Profile: India