Transcript Power Point Presentation - World Federation of Science Journalists

Media Coverage of Climate Change
Impacts, Policies and Politics
Pallab Ghosh
President, World Federation of Science Journalists
Science Correspondent, BBC News
2009 AAAS Annual meeting
February 13
WFSJ’s Goals
• Improve the quality of science
reporting
• Training and networking
for science journalists
SjCOOP = Peer-to-Peer Mentoring
Christophe Mvondo, Newspaper La
Nouvelle Expression, Cameroon
 Become responsible of the
“environment” pages (2 pages every 2
weeks) of his newspaper La Nouvelle
Expression
 In 2007 and 2008, Christophe
published several articles on lake
Nyos.
What followed was a big political
debate. It now looks like the
government has acted; they
confirmed in 2007 that they will
spend the money in November 2008.
•Hellish Vision
•Melting Ice Doomsday
•Will Kill Billions
•Most Life Would be Exterminated
The Great Climate Conspiracy
There is actually very little scientific agreement
about whether any of these extreme weather
events can be blamed on anything other than
normal and natural variation
Amundsen
15 science
journalists from
around the world
won a trip to
report on climat
change onboard
the Amundsen, a
Canadian
Icebreaker
Tatiana Pichugina
"Before the trip I
privately thought
"climate change"
concerns were a kind of
imperialist conspiracy to
use science to promote
the world market, but
the Amundsen changed
my attitude …
WCSJ2009 – key facts
• 30th June – 2nd July 2009
• Central Hall, Westminster
• www.wcsj2009.org
WCSJ2009 – goals
• More than 600 journalists / communicators
• Gearing Up for Copenhagen: Sir David King
• Science, Policy and Politics: Cris Russell
• Raise quality & impact of Climate Coverage
Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website
She is why I am here…
Pallab Ghosh
[email protected]