Kathmandu- A newly released study reveals that the issues of climate change and environment are not a priority for daily newspaper.
Study conducted by Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalist (NEFEJ) showed that ‘intensive and serious discussions on those issues in public domain are not reflected in the media with the same gravity.’
“The news related to environment and climate changes are being published on inside pages of the newspapers. Out of six newspapers, only Nagarik and Republica dally have allocated separate space for the news related to environment and climate change,” says the report.
As a sampling, NEFEJ selected six daily newspapers—Kantipur, Annapurna Post, Nagarik, The Kathmandu Post, The Himalayan Times and Republica—for monitoring. The three month-long study scanned the news, views and editorials published by the newspapers during our monitoring period to get a picture of media coverage on these issues.
Read the full text of the Report:
“Environment and climate change are two prominent issues that have generating wider debate and discussions across the world. There are increased investment flows in these sectors both from government and donor agencies. Public hearing and discussions are also taking place.
In order to find out the status of media coverage on the pressing issue of national and global concerns,Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalists (NEFEJ)monitored the news, opinions, photos, and editorials published in major broadsheet newspapers.
As a sampling, we selected six daily newspapers—Kantipur, Annapurna Post, Nagarik, The Kathmandu Post, The Himalayan Times and Republica—for monitoring. We scanned the news, views and editorials published by the newspapers during our monitoring period to get a picture of media coverage on these issues.
NEFEJ has been continuously highlighting the issues related environment, climate change and sustainable development for the past 30 years. NEFEJ has various outlets such as AnkhiJhyal, NayaPusta, and RadioSagarmatha, and hakahaki.org that are consistently advocating on the issues of environment, climate change and Sustainable Development goals. We have been providing various inputs to government agencies.
This monitoring aims to dig out the qualitative and quantitative aspects of the news published in daily newspapers. Our first monitoring shows the intensive and serious discussions on those issues in public domain are not reflected in the media with the same gravity. The news related to environment and climate change are being published on inside pages of the newspapers. Out of six newspapers, only Nagarik and Republica dallies have allocated separate space for the news related to environment and climate change. In both newspapers, the news related to these issuesis usually carried on page 4. Similarly, both the newspapers are publishing news related to environment and climate change on business and economy pages. In this period, Nagarik daily published 21 news on its economic page.
News related to government’s decision to ban 20-year old public vehicles, snowfall, death from cold are often published in front page. It has been found that Nagarik Daily and Republica daily are publishing more news and photos related to environment and climate change in comparison to other newspapers selected for the study. Annapurna Post comes in the third position when it comes to publishing the news related to environment and climate change.
The monitoring shows that Nagarik and Republica have given more priority to the news related to environment and climate change. During this period, 33 news were published in the front pages of Nagarik and Republica dallies. The number of photos with captions is also high in these two newspapers. Our study shows that use of photos in the news is very low.
During this period, 383 news related to environment and climate change was published in six newspapers. Among them, news related to air pollution, water and soil pollution top the list with 1,117 news under these headings. There were 111 news related to climate change and its effects. Twenty news were related to natural disaster, 43 news related to bio-diversity, and 20 news related to waste management, while 20 news were related to sustainable development goals and 35 news were related to cold. An opinion piece was published highlight the issues related to environmental dispute. There were six news related to Human-wildlife conflict. The priority to the news related to environment and climate change are found to be at variance depending on the seasons. During summer and rainy season, news related to floods and landslide become prominent, and the news related to fire get priority in the autumn seasons. The newspapers, however, have not provided sufficient news and reviews on the ways to mitigate such natural disasters. The opinion, analysis and editorial on these issues are almost non-existent. In totality, there were not editorial, view or opinion article on the issues related to environment climate change and sustainable development.
In this period, eight opinions and one editorial appeared in newspapers on the issues related to environment, climate change and sustainable development. Out of eight opinions, six opinions were published in English Daily, The Himalyan Times within March, an editorial was published by Republica daily.
The presence of women journalists in media is dismal. The women journalists who are currently working in daily newspapers are assigned beats such as women, children, entertainment art and life style among others. The beats such as politics, economy, sports, and climate change are dominated by male journalists. There were very few bylines of women journalists during this period. In this period, 280 news were published with byline, but there were only 23 byline news of women journalists.
The purpose of our study is not to analyze the trend of news related to environment, climate change and sustainable development. The purpose of the study is to find some creative ways on how we can work ahead to highlight those issues in the media. We have also tried to analyze the gender aspect of this issue.
As part of our study, we have identified the number of women journalists writing on these issues and providing more space to women journalists in our training programs. On the basis of this report, we will identity the issues requiring immediate priority and provide training accordingly. We will provide writing fellowship to journalistsdemonstrating the ability to identify the issues of priority. In order to motivate and encourage journalists to write news on environment and climate change, we are going to provide writing fellowships. “
