DATE / TIME:

2018/04/12    14:00 - 15:00

Location:

Italy

Co-Organisers: Lookout Station, Formicablu, Wellcome Trust, International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), Code for Africa, United Nations University, Public Media Alliance, Climate Tracker, Clean Energy Wire (CLEW), Outliers Collective, Ursa, European Forest Genetic Resources Programme, Israel Embassy in Italy

Speakers

• Alok Jha, public engagement fellow Wellcome Trust
• Jacopo Ottaviani, ICFJ Knight Fellow Code for Africa
• Elisabetta Tola, founder Formicablu
• Rina Tsubaki, European Forest Institute

Science journalism is facing a problem. Scientists fear that complexity goes undermined and miscommunicated. At the same time, journalists need to find new narratives and ways to use climate change data and models in their coverage, going beyond apocalyptic future perspectives.

There is a need to engage audiences more deeply, yet leave them empowered by what they read/see, rather than hopeless.

This workshop aims to foster active collaboration at different levels, between scientists and journalists, and across newsrooms but also with audiences. In this session, participants will tackle questions such as:

• How do we prevent climate stories being relegated to emergencies or scare stories?
• How do we facilitate a medium-long term collaboration between researchers/scientists and journalists leading to more data and fact-based stories?
• How do we motivate both journalists and scientists in listening to the different publics and try to use scientific knowledge to integrate with politics, economics, culture, and try and answer to communities’ needs?

Communicators from UNU-FLORES and UNU-MERIT will help shape the conversation at the session. Contributions and collaborations from the workshop will be used to foster action at the local and global levels, and to help build innovative methods, strategies, and a new language in work on climate change and the sustainable use of natural resources.

Follow the action on social media via the hashtag #SciJournoFuse.

Background

The International Journalism Festival (IJF) is the biggest annual media event in Europe. The 2018 festival (11–15 April) has 301 sessions and 710 speakers in the five-day programme.

Related Websites:
“Facelift Challenge: Collaborative Processes for Climate Change Journalism” at the International Journalism Festival
International Journalism Festival website