Thread by @baekdal

I hate saying this, but I fundamentally believe that news journalism is broken. Let me give you an example:

Yesterday, 97% of the Danish politicians, across the party lines, agreed to a 70% reduction of CO2 to save the climate. The only two parties that didn't agree to it was a tiny center party and our ultra-right-wing party. (each representing a tiny 1.5% of the public)

The ultra-right-wing party is noticeable here because, over the past several months, it has been running on a misleading anti-climate campaign, where their party leader has repeatedly stated incorrect things about the climate.

So what happened? Well, today, Danish news sites have been running articles about why this ultra-right-wing party did what it did, without fact-checking, without demanding that they provided proof for their statements, but merely reported "what they said"

Aka giving them a voice

Two things:

First, this party represents 1.5% of the public but is giving an outsized voice via the press. We are enabling this.

Second, this is akin to when news sites invite a climate skeptic into a studio to argue their point with a scientist.

Those are not equals.

But, you say, as newspapers, we must provide a neutral platform. But this is not neutral. Neutral would be to give this party 1.5% of the attention, but you are giving it 50% of the attention because they are 'on the other side'.

It's he said, she said-journalism.

But the failure here is what this does to our society.

I believe one of the main reasons why it has taken this long to do anything about the climate is that every single time it has been debated, we in the media put in extra efforts to include climate skeptics at the debates.

Instead of debating what best to do about it, we have spent the past 10 years in the press debating whether it was real or not.

We did this.... us, as journalists.

We got scientific consensus all the way back in 2007. But we are still debating in the press!

In other words, we ... via our journalism ... have been holding back progress, we made people doubt established science, caused confusion, and delayed responses ... so that we could have more debates about things we already knew.

And it's not like we as journalists didn't know it either. Pretty much every journalist I know fully understand climate change. But you keep giving a voice to the climate skeptics regardless. You keep creating doubt.

This is not what journalism should be about. This is not providing a neutral platform. What we are actually doing is to help the climate skeptics get a voice to a much bigger extend than what they have earned.

In our effort to 'remain neutral', we actually promote doubt.

This is a fundamental failure of journalism.

And my solution to this is simple. People should 'earn' journalism. Meaning that the condition for being included in debates, being interviewed, being reported about, etc... should be whether you can provide trustworthy information.

If a politician cannot do that, as is the case with this right-wing party, then they have not earned a place at the table.

It doesn't matter how outrageous they talk about things. It doesn't matter that they have a strong 'opposite opinion' about things.

They must earn it.

In the media industry we keep saying that journalism is a public good, but we are not if we keep giving climate skeptics a voice merely because they are opposing everyone else.

We are failing to provide the public good that we promise.

And this isn't just about climate. It's about everything. We do this every single day in the news media industry.

This is broken journalism. But it's something that we can and should fix.

Here is another example of how fundamentally broken journalism is. Take this headline. It tells the public that the 'Blue block' is split on climate change.

So let's check [cont.]

The two parties in the 'Blue bock' who didn't vote for the agreement has ***8 parliamentary seats***. The rest of the blue block has ***76 parliamentary seats***

This is what we in the media report as the blue block being split on climate.

We are failing at journalism!

Here is a headline from another Danish newspaper. Remember, 97% of the politicians voted for this climate act. But here, the right-wing party who disagrees is given center stage.

There is no disagreement; there is no tragedy. 97% agree that this is a good thing.

Don't tell me this is 'neutral journalism'. We in the media are specifically seeking out conflict, trying to add doubt back into the debate.

97% agree, but, you tell the public that the politicians disagree and that it's bad.

Again, this is failed journalism.