Can you believe it?

The reliability of the UK newspaper reports on climate change, like many other subjects, are generally created to sell papers, so therefore using shock tactics to grab a reader’s attention. A lot of tabloid newspapers, report on such issues with a light humour, which relates back to the general public, that the issue of climate change, is one to take with a pinch of salt. This attitude towards climate change will tend to also focus on the extreme results and causes, and very rarely link, in tabloids, the idea of sustainable development.

It is clear that when reading an article in a tabloid paper myself, that the seriousness of climate change and such scientific matters, are regarded as less important than those of idolising and the gossip of celebrities. I find myself over come with anger when flicking through many national UK tabloids, as the major headlining stories focus on the issues of celebrities, being a size zero, and creating a large stereo typical dream of ‘perfection’ which causes so many problems in peer pressure in our society, especially amongst young teenage girls. The UK tabloids have a large influential power over all their readers, to who are mainly the lower middle class and skilled working class.

‘[Media] is like a feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits’ – statement by outgoing UK Prime Minister Tony Blair to the Reuters Institute, 12 June 2007 (
Baldwin, 2006).

It is clear that even Tony Blair recognised the power that the tabloid papers hold, and with most of their coverage of climate change being light hearted the impact and influence to the general public is minimal. This also is in regard the link between climate change and sustainable development, as I think of developing countries initially in my mind when focusing on the term, sustainable development. With such emphasis on the problem on climate change, and not the ways to encourage sustainable development in the tabloids, the UK may find it ever increasingly difficult to implement change in our use of resources etc.

Boykoff, M.T (2008), underwent research and published his findings on, the issue of UK tabloids publishing articles on climate change. In Boykoff’s findings, the most popular articles relating to climate change where related to political actors, and secondly weather events. Boykoff also researched the tone of UK tabloid headlines on climate change. In 2006, most headlines where neutral (86.6%), a quarter contained fear/misery/doom (25.2%), a small amount hope/happiness (4.1%) and only 3.9% satire.

When I read these figures, they surprised me, as my understanding from personal reading was, most headlines regarding any subject, where either satire or fear/misery/doom. This re-assured me that maybe tabloids are indeed reporting on a more neutral scale, the seriousness of the issue climate change.

“It seems that mere ‘climate change’ was not going to be bad enough, and so now it must be ‘catastrophic’ to be worthy of attention. The increasing use of this pejorative term – and its bedfellow qualifiers ‘chaotic’, ‘irreversible’, ‘rapid’ – has altered the public discourse around climate change…” (
Hulme, 2006 M. Hulme, Chaotic world of climate truth, BBC News (2006, November 4) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6115644.stm Accessed 04.04.08.Hulme, 2006)

I agree full heartily with the above comment made by Hulme, in Boykoff’s report. Many people take a blasé approach to climate change, as although it is apparent to be happening, (it is October and it has snowed already!) the use of such fierce language for so long in reports have made people switch off to its importance, as it has been referred to too much as high importance, and nothing has appeared to have changed in people’s perceptions.

On the other hand, it is known that column space in UK tabloids is very tough to fight for when there are such pressures to hear only juicy gossip, and the environment we live in and climate change to many people do not even compare to such things, meaning the column space gets smaller and smaller. The increase in the use of satire and fear in an article, to make it competitive to read and give it that ‘juicy’ edge, causes me to be less reliable on such articles.

Broadsheet papers however, have always given a more accurate, educational and scientific background to their writings regarding climate change. When I pick up a broadsheet, I feel that when I read the paper, that I will be reading something of correct content and generally a balanced argument, rather than a provoked answer, like the tabloids.

Therefore, I find that my reliability of climate change being reported in the UK newspapers is divided between the tabloid and the broadsheet market. I always read the tabloid news, with a little lack of trust in what they write, but rely fully on the writings of the broadsheets. I trust the broadsheets to portray the actual facts and concerns of the issue too, rather than the worst case scenario like the tabloids.









REFRENCE
Boykoff, M.T.(2008), The cultural politics of climate change discourse in UK tabloids. Political Geographic. 27. 549-569.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VG2-4SWG0D9-2&_user=635273&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=635273&md5=d8cac79f85845dbd84976e612bfb92ad