Last word

Why David Fogarty Stopped Reporting On Climate Change for Reuters?

Has Reuters fallen off the climate bandwagon? Can this well-reputed source still be trusted to produce fair and independent coverage of climate change? David Fogarty, formerly climate change correspondent for Asia, said he left the international news organisation earlier this year after being told climate change “just wasn’t a big story for the present” and his role was abolished. “Debate on some story ideas generated endless bureaucracy by editors frightened to take a decision”, said David, “reflecting a different type of climate within Reuters – the climate of fear”.  Read more

Note from the Editor:

I met up with David Fogarty this month and he confirmed what he said about Reuters, which was reported on The Baron blogsite.

He had earlier told me by email: “In the best traditions of journalism, I set up my own media consultancy in Singapore – www.fallingapplesconsultants.com -  focusing on working with clients with a real green streak. An NGO in Indonesia is also looking at hiring me for specific projects. I recently signed a contract with UNEP for ad hoc editing and writing.”

We have carried some of David’s reports in our newsletter before  – you can do a search and find them simply by entering David Fogarty and abc carbon express – and he was also nominated and elected to the Global 100 Sustain Ability Leaders list last year. – Ken Hickson

Climate change: Reuters says ‘no change’ in editorial policy

The Baron (17 July 2013):

Reuters is committed to providing fair and independent coverage of climate change that complies fully with the Trust Principles, the company affirmed after a former specialist reporter said it had become harder to get climate change stories published by the agency.

A Reuters spokesperson provided the following statement: “Reuters is committed to providing fair and independent coverage of climate change that complies fully with the Trust Principles. Reuters has a number of staff dedicated to covering this story, including a team of specialist reporters at Point Carbon and a columnist. There has been no change in our editorial policy.”

Thomson Reuters Point Carbon provides news, analysis and consulting services for European and global power, gas and carbon markets. Its 55,000 clients include the world’s major energy companies, financial institutions, organisations and governments in more than 150 countries.

David Fogarty, formerly climate change correspondent for Asia, said in a letter to The Baron on Monday that he had left the organisation earlier this year after being told climate change “just wasn’t a big story for the present” and his role was abolished.

“Progressively, getting any climate change-themed story published got harder. It was a lottery. Some desk editors happily subbed and pushed the button. Others agonised and asked a million questions. Debate on some story ideas generated endless bureaucracy by editors frightened to take a decision, reflecting a different type of climate within Reuters – the climate of fear,” he wrote.

Climate change

Here’s what David Fogarty wrote and it appeared in full in the The Baron on Monday 15 July 2013. It was also provided as a link on the ABC (Australia) Environment portal:

The parlous state of Reuters’ climate and environment coverage is baffling and a massive disservice to paying clients [■ New regime brings change of climate at Reuters]. Climate change has become one of the stories of the century and a top economic, political and humanitarian focus for the globe.

Financial clients from banks, insurance firms, miners, agricultural giants to central banks and power generators want news on climate change impacts and policy. They want the best scientific analysis on future impacts on changes in weather patterns, sea level rise and impacts on crops – i.e., food security.

Climate change touches every facet of human life and every economy. It’s a massive business story. Yet some people seem to view it only as a debate between climate scientists and paid-for climate sceptics and oil-industry lobbyists trying to promote business as usual.

Reuters’ senior managers seem oblivious to the wider picture. Climate change reportage is vital to the public and Reuters’ clients, the very people editors should be doing everything to retain as revenues falter.

President Obama gets it. Just read his latest ■ climate action plan.

The scientific community gets it. Obama noted that 97 per cent of scientists agree that the planet is warming and humans are a driver of that change; and that scientific evidence, “accumulated and reviewed over decades” tells us that these changes will have profound impacts on all of humankind. The World Bank gets it, so does the IMF, IEA and the United Nations.

Obama doesn’t need to look far to see the threat from climate change. From deadly wildfires, massive storms such as Hurricane Sandy, to monster tornadoes and droughts and floods, the past couple of years has been a record-setter for the US for weather extremes. It’s the same picture in Australia and miners, farmers, city dwellers and insurers have all been hit. And then look at Europe, Pakistan and China.

From very early in 2012, I was repeatedly told that climate and environment stories were no longer a top priority for Reuters and I was asked to look at other areas. Being stubborn, and passionate about my climate change beat, I largely ignored the directive.

It was a strange repositioning of editorial focus for Asia, which has some of the world’s top polluters and some of the greatest environmental challenges taxing economies and governments.

In April last year, Paul Ingrassia (then deputy editor-in-chief) and I met and had a chat at a company function. He told me he was a climate change sceptic. Not a rabid sceptic, just someone who wanted to see more evidence mankind was changing the global climate.

Progressively, getting any climate change-themed story published got harder. It was a lottery. Some desk editors happily subbed and pushed the button. Others agonised and asked a million questions. Debate on some story ideas generated endless bureaucracy by editors frightened to take a decision, reflecting a different type of climate within Reuters – the climate of fear.

By mid-October, I was informed that climate change just wasn’t a big story for the present, but that it would be if there was a significant shift in global policy, such as the US introducing an emissions cap-and-trade system.

Very soon after that conversation I was told my climate change role was abolished. I was asked to take over the regional shipping role and that I had less than a week to decide.

I decided it was time to leave.

By far one of the most bizarre climate e-mail exchanges occurred on 30 October regarding Hurricane Sandy. I offered to kick-off a story from Asia leading on the storm’s impact on public opinion on climate change, given it occurred a week before presidential elections and was the type of storm climate scientists say we should expect as the planet warms. There was a huge amount of commentary to draw on from other media and commentators.

A senior Top News editor in Asia shot down the idea saying “climate change is one of those topics that can get people’s backs up”. Michael Stott, the Europe, Middle East and Africa regional editor in London, in turn, shot down that editor’s view and urged the story to be written, saying: “Many other media will follow this trail – it’s an obvious angle and one we should explore”.

Reuters in the US did the story, about 48 hours later than everyone else, despite reporters there itching to get a story out sooner.

Since I’ve left, I’ve lost count of the number of people who have asked me why Reuters’ climate change coverage has changed in tone and fallen in volume. That’s a good question for David Thomson, who is very keen to unlock value for his family’s acquisition of Reuters. He could do worse than restoring much needed resources to the climate and environment file to better serve clients and rebuild the Reuters brand. The Guardian and others have done well in this arena and capitalised on Reuters’ decision to abandon climate and environment reporting leadership.

One other thing. Climate change-linked issues can win Pulitzer Prizes. Just ask ■ InsideClimate News, three of whose reporters won a Pulitzer in April.

David Fogarty

New regime brings change of climate at Reuters

12 July 2013:

Winds of change are blowing through Reuters’ environmental coverage. One of its three regional environment correspondents “is no longer with the company” and the other two have been ordered to switch focus, people inside the agency say.

A perceptible shift in Reuters’ approach to the global climate change story has attracted international attention. Scientists and climatologists as well as non-governmental and international environment bodies have detected a move from the agency’s straight coverage towards scepticism on the view held by a vast majority of scientists that climate change is the result of human pollution of the atmosphere and environment. They see generally fewer stories on the issue. Some say they have been taken aback by Reuters’ new direction and are concerned that this could contribute to a change in government and public perceptions of climate change.

The three regional environment correspondents – one each reporting on the Americas, Asia, and Europe, the Middle East and Africa – typically covered climate policy, climate science, carbon markets and energy policies and impacts on energy firms, international climate negotiations, deforestation, and climate change impacts on agriculture.

The specialist correspondent for Asia was Singapore-based David Fogarty, who was transferred to more general news reporting before he left earlier this year after two decades with the company including four years on the Asia climate change beat. His opposite numbers in the other two regions are Alister Doyle, based in Oslo from where he has written about the environment for a decade, and Deborah Zabarenko, based in Washington from where she has reported on the environment and climate change since 2006.

Typical of the new focus of environment reporting – insiders say editors and sub-editors have also been steered in the new direction – was a story earlier this year headed Climate scientists struggle to explain warming slowdown. It reported that some experts were saying their trust in climate science had declined because of many uncertainties.

A blog posting on The Guardian website challenged the premise of the report and said warming was in fact speeding up. It asked Why is Reuters puzzled by global warming’s acceleration? The Guardian said: “We often hear from the media that the (surface air) warming has slowed or paused over the past 15 years. This isn’t a puzzle; climate scientists are well aware of several contributing factors, as a recent Reuters article… eventually discussed. The accelerated warming of the oceans is likely the main contributor.”

Criticism of the Reuters story was taken up across the blogosphere. Comments contributed to some of these postings said the writer of the story under whose byline it was issued should not be blamed for its tone as the edited version on the Reuters service may well have been substantially altered from the original.

Insiders say internal discussion over Reuters’ new direction came to a head two weeks ago in an “open disagreement” between the editor for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Michael Stott, and the new managing editor, Paul Ingrassia, who was moved to London from New York in April.

Ingrassia, who was recruited to Reuters in 2011 as deputy editor-in-chief, had been a long-time motor industry writer for The Wall Street Journal and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for his reporting of a management crisis at General Motors. He said in April that his new appointment to London put him at “the geographic centre” of the news operation.

The result of the reported row was Stott’s abrupt dismissal after a 25-year, high-profile career with Reuters. The two editors had differed previously about a global warming story that quoted climate scientists at the time of Hurricane Sandy in New York last October. Stott himself is saying nothing about the circumstances of his departure.

Source: www.thebaron.info