“Watchdog for the future: the journalist as pioneer of a new global narrative”

“Watchdog for the future: the journalist as pioneer of a new global narrative” is the title of the new quarterly report from the Global Challenges Foundation, written by journalists and participants from academia (with a marked predominance of women, for once), sharing their perspectives on the current state of global media, the changes and responsibilities it is currently facing and possible ways to improve global reporting and provide new narratives and outreach.

«The Global Challenges Foundation Quarterly Reports examine how the world is currently jeopardized by global risks of catastrophic magnitude, and what solutions might directly or indirectly reduce, mitigate or – at best – eliminate those risks. In this issue, we focus more particularly on the stories that drive global action and the writers of those stories. What we need to see at this point in global history is global action. This requires global narratives. Therefore, we give center stage to voices from the global media to share perspectives on their work» writes Julien Leyre, of the Global Challenges Foundation in the Executive summary. «The first section of the report, ‘watchdog for the future’, offers four pieces that explore the role of the journalist in guiding public action and holding institutions to account».

One of the four stories is devoted to science and environmental journalism, and specifically to the coverage of climate change: «Media interest towards climate change swelled in the run-up to COP21, but after the event, coverage was neither sustained nor effective in mobilizing people. Why does climate reporting fall short of achieving the effects required by the seriousness of the issue, inquires journalist Kristine Sabillo in ‘Reshaping climate reporting: four challenges and one sign of hope’. Indeed, the structure of media organizations favors regular beats and news that sell over climate related issues, there is a lack of journalists trained on the issue, funding for climate reporting is inadequate, and multi-sensory stories accessible to non-expert audiences are difficult to produce. However, global collaboration around climate reporting has already given birth to remarkable projects, and offers great hope for the future».