United Nations, January 16 (IPS) – At the end of a five-minute report from a makeshift studio in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, the site of COP27, Cotonou-based journalist Ghyslaine Florida Zossoungbo had could provide real-time information to her compatriots back home in the Republic of Benin.
Zossoungbo reports to ODD TV Benin, an online platform dedicated to the promotion Sustainable development goals (SDGs) in her home country.
On this day, she found a little corner in one of the booths at COP27 sitting on a high stool behind a laptop while a camera perched on a tripod a few feet away.
At the conference, Zossoungbo and other journalists, even those from major media organizations like CNN or bloggers holding an iPhone but having a large following on social media, quickly ran. follow celebrities and world leaders or anyone who has anything important to say about climate change.
And at the end of each day, they immediately roll out climate change content to a global audience.
However, despite Zossoungbo’s best efforts to report on the climate crisis, aided by new mass information technology, she says reporting on climate change in her country. It—perhaps as it does in the rest of Africa—was fraught with challenges.
“We are the only media organization that regularly covers the climate crisis because we focus on the SDGs,” says Zossoungbo. “Other media focus on politics and other issues.”
She added: “People can see that something is happening with the weather due to floods and droughts, but they don’t yet understand what it is in its full context. So we kept talking and talking about it.
in Cameroonexplain Killian Chimton Ngalaa widely recognized journalist, “Climate change doesn’t often make the front pages of newspapers or headlines on television or radio news.”
Report background
Ngala’s experience is that “Climate reporting often lacks context. For example, when journalists cover flooding, they don’t necessarily link it to climate change. They often focus on event and impact.”
Without perspective, climate change reporting becomes a complicated concept for many people, especially grassroots people.
Ngala provides an example of such a report: “Not long ago, fighting broke out in communities in the Arctic Region of Cameroon, between Choa-Arab cattle herders and Mousgoum farmers, because water resources are running out.
Many people died in the conflict, and a top government official decided to visit the area.
“Do you know how journalists report stories?” Ngala asked rhetorically. “They all reported that the minister reminded the community and asked them to keep the peace.
“But when you look at it, why are communities fighting? That’s because the stream in the village is drying up, and community residents as well as herders have to scramble for limited water as a result of changing weather patterns.
“If you ask a lot of people in Africa why their lakes are dry or why they suffer from frequent droughts, some people won’t even know let alone advocate for solutions.
“Let’s take the example of the depletion of Lake Chad, which is forcing herders in northern Nigeria and Cameroon to migrate south. The farmers in the south believed that herdsmen were coming to take their land. The resulting war has claimed many lives,” he lamented.
Why then does the media not tell the climate story as forcefully as it should?
Training needs
Ngala blamed the lack of resources and training.
“Environmental reporting is very expensive; it needs a lot of travel and risk taking. It’s not cheap. Many media organizations in Africa find it inappropriate. For example, they cannot afford to spend thousands of dollars to fund reporters to cover COP27,” Ngala said.
There are very few trained environmental reporters in newsrooms, he said. As a result, reporting on climate change has not yet received the attention it deserves.
“Media managers would rather send reporters to cover politics, which drive sales, than to cover environmental issues, unless it’s a major disaster. They would rather send reporters to cover our President’s trip to Addis Ababa than to COP27,” she said.
external sponsors
Ngala is one of a number of African journalists funded by climate-focused organizations, particularly in Europe and North America, to cover COP27.
For example, the Media Partnership on Climate Change (CCMP), an Earth Press Network (EJN) project managed by Internews and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security, brought Ngala and five other African journalists to Sharm El Sheikh to cover COP27.
They are among 20 journalists (out of more than 500 applicants) from low- and middle-income countries funded under the scholarship.
The scholarship package comes with training on “quality reporting on development at COP27,” according to the EJN announcement, which adds that Africa accounts for 2-3% of global emissions but bears the burden. climate crisis. As a result, African journalists must continue to cover the impact of the crisis and hold governments accountable.
“It was a rigorous application process,” says Evelyn Kpadeh Seagbeh afterward Liberia-based on Power FM and Television, also a colleague.
“But because of the scholarship, I won’t be here. I applied for the scholarship because being here for two weeks would cost thousands of dollars, which my institution may not be able to afford.”
Climate content
The symbiotic relationship between media content producers and content consumers is complex.
The perceived interest of the audience can influence content production even when the media’s agenda-setting role involves guiding the audience to focus on issues. specific.
It leads to a point that African journalists have not yet effectively linked climate change issues to the socioeconomic well-being of their citizens.
“That’s the point,” Ngala retorted. “Journalists cover the environment separately from other areas of economic development. You can see why in many countries economic ministries don’t include the climate crisis as part of their portfolios. It is usually reserved for underfunded environmental ministries.”
“Lack of appreciation of the severity of the climate crisis,” explains Mwika Bennet SimbeyeActing Editor-in-Chief of the Times Zambia.
“Journalists tend to instinctively focus on everyday issues—all political plays and money-related issues,” says Simbeye.
Agree that training and increased funding will promote climate reporting, Paul OmorogbeChief reporter of the Tribune of Nigeriais optimistic.
“I believe the situation is slowly changing. In Nigeria, reporting on the climate crisis is slowly gaining traction in the media. We are getting there.”
The source: African Renewal, United Nations
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© Inter Press Service (2023) — All rights reservedOrigin: Inter Press Service
