11. Good Practices in Climate Science Journalism

This chapter analyzes print media articles considered as good practices in climate (science) journalism. It does so by, firstly, sketching various criteria that are able to bridge gaps between science communication and lay people’s livelihoods and everyday experiences. It also takes into account the evolution from a traditional, top-down model of science communication to a non-traditional, bottom-up one which may have a wider popular outreach. Second, against the backdrop of these criteria, the chapter discusses a sample of newspaper items from the IPCC AR5 coverage, selected from across different genres and a variety of countries. Third, the chapter provides findings drawn from qualitative interviews with a group of IPCC authors on their assessments of good climate (science) journalism. The chapter concludes with some recommendations on how climate change reporting can be more optimized in the future.