[fb_button] As the Paris talks on climate change receives global media attention, I am reminded by the New York Times this morning of how powerful a news narrative can be once the global frame of reference is melded with the personal accounts of people hit by consequences.
In this particular NYT story, three features stand out, one obviously being the theme of climate change itself. The second theme is the way the New York Times breaks new ground as a US newspaper by following the unfolding of a post-Barack Obama political reality in the United States. After having spent many years in the United States I am constantly reminded of how profoundly parochial most US news media are; the New York Times standing out as an exception.
On the morning of December 2nd, I woke up to a story about how the Marshal Islands in the South Pacific are sinking -- or more accurately, how the rising sea levels now make the Islands less and less inhabitable. And it's not the only place in the world where this is happening. By covering the Paris climate summit from the point of view of real people in a real world, the New York Times also points to linkages between US foreign policy and the domestic agenda. One could wonder for a lifetime how the world would appear today if the US media had done that, regularly, decades back. They do not.
Third is the actual modality of the news story: A lot of open white space, a story written up the way the New York Times knows how, and with a set of video images inserted into the story that not only underscores the story but are re-embeddable, with an invitation to make them go viral.
This is the new world of global journalism – and a forewarning that other news media as for instance the Nordic media, in the future will be cultivated from a peer-review point of reference: They will continue to loose readers -- like me -- unless they match the readability of key news media like The New York Times. With all the clutter gone, and very modest advertising, the stark reality of a world in trouble comes out all the more convincing, and scaring.
A closer look at the way New York Times covers the Paris climate summit as a news story this morning, is also a reminder of the power of news reporting: As more and more people around the Pacific islands prepare for rising sea water levels, one question is how to make their story known? How does one engage a world? How does one make the consequences of climate change a real factor in the everyday life of people across the world?
One feature that stands out in this story is the way a global crisis is narrated through the lens of looking at its consequences for ordinary people. With the powerful means of visualisation that are now available to news story tellers everywhere. Just take a look.