Want to cut through the noise when it comes to climate change? One World Media recently hosted a webinar covering ways to engage an audience when producing a story about environmental issues. Maria Paula Murcia, project and impact editor at Mutante, Dashen Moodley, senior producer for Radio Workshop, and Pawanjot Kaur, freelance video producer and filmmaker, all shared their thoughts.

Community at the heart

Over the last few years, many news organisations and journalists have pivoted to centring on community when telling stories. For Pawanjot Kaur, this approach is also vital for climate reporting: 

‘When I was meeting communities, some of them already had solutions. Open pit coal mines which were full of water. Communities started fishing that water and that became like a little fish farm in the village.’

She stressed the importance of building up trust with the community, not rushing to film, but engaging with people, and showing the community they can share their story with her.

Dashen Moodley has also seen the benefits in his work, too:

‘The value is actually going into a community and understanding what young people are saying about their concerns, where they see problems in their community and helping to make that link with carbon emission or environmental problems.’

Exploiting different formats

With a rise in the amount of news on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, there are plenty of options for journalists to share stories about the environment and climate change. For Maria Paula Murcia, storytelling is about providing an experience and multimedia allows her to do that:

‘I think multimedia and the way we regard it, makes it possible for us to add other things that we might leave out in other forms of journalism. If we are doing a written piece but we have to leave out some character just because it doesn’t fit anymore in that particular story, then we can have it as an Instagram format or maybe we can have a film and tell that story in another format.’

The tricky part is then identifying what characters and stories fit best in which format. Dashen, who works in audio, feels the benefit of his medium for listeners is that you ‘can actually place them in the scene’ and feels ‘the more memorable visuals are the ones we conjure for ourselves’. However, he stressed that regardless of whether you work in print, visual, audio or multimedia, ‘the essence of good storytelling is about finding a good character’.

‘Be intentional’ with your engagement

All journalists want to see readers engaging in conversation around their content. Dashen, Maria, and Pawanjot all agreed that the best way to do this is to ‘be intentional about your input’. Dashen advised the best way to do this:

‘Write a list of who you want to reach out to, and who is it in the media that you really think will be interested in the story. Who are the thought leaders in your community that should be hearing this story? Who are the other activists that are out there that are either working on this issue or would be interested in the story? Reach out to them and try to do that as early as possible in the process of making your story’.

Pawanjot added that for subjects like energy transition, ‘it cannot have a shelf life, because there’s constant engagement’. Dashen also pointed out how much is already out there covering environmental topics – there is almost ‘an information overload’. Having a strong focus on what you’re trying to tell will help you find your audience.

Looking for some environmental experts to provide comments on an article? We have a list here that could help get what you need, or if there isn’t someone quite fitting the bill then send a request via the Journalist Enquiry Service to seek the expert you need.