How Carbon Brief is becoming the authority in climate media
Future News 98
You have to understand what Carbon Brief is not to appreciate where it has succeeded. It is not a news agency. It is not a daily news outlet. And it is not in the business of rushing-out stories.
The 10-year-old organisation happily sits in the slow lane of the media industry, sometimes taking a year to publish a novella-length feature around an evergreen climate change subject. “We are always that one beat behind the news cycle,” editor and director Leo Hickman told FN.
It hasn’t always been that way for Carbon Brief, though. The outlet started off life in December 2010 as a sort of rapid rebuttal blog to the UK tabloid media, which, until recently, adopted an anti-green editorial stance.
Over the years, however, Carbon Brief has transformed itself into a more thoughtful, long-form offering with “calling card” data visualisations of climate change trends.
Because of its philanthropic model, with the European Climate Foundation (no relation to the EU) awarding it an annual grant of almost £600,000 (as of 2019), Carbon Brief is not under the immense commercial and advertising-focused pressure other media outlets face. This enables it to take a longer, more informed view of climate science and policy responses.
And because of the outlet’s impartial stance on climate policy, Hickman, who joined in 2015 from The Guardian, is against accepting sponsorship opportunities for his publication.
This is despite the many offers he has received for Carbon Brief’s popular daily briefing, an editorial product read by ministers in the UK and civil servants in the US. “Hopefully we are a really good case study to show how this new form of journalism can work,” Hickman said.
But just because Carbon Brief isn’t commercially minded, doesn’t mean it isn’t ambitious. The outlet, for instance, is considering whether to launch a podcast this year (the team was still very much in the research stage of this process when FN last spoke to Hickman) and Carbon Brief also has two new editorial recruits focusing on China, both the world’s largest polluter and biggest investor in environmental infrastructure.
The publication plans to use social media platform WeChat to attract new readers with important pieces of coverage like an explainer around the country’s five-year plan and how that policy document will impact China’s climate ambitions and, ultimately, the world. “What China does, matters for us all,” Hickman stressed.
In total, Carbon Brief now has three full-time journalists focusing on the East Asian nation. They are all part of a 12-strong full-time editorial team, which triple-edits big stories before publication.
That means beyond the author of a piece, Carbon Brief’s policy editor, Simon Evans, science editor, Robert McSweeney, and Hickman himself will cast an eye over the work. There is also a team of contributing editors, who are on-hand to lend their scientific expertise.
This rigour has paid off, with many of Carbon Brief’s stories ranking highly on Google and other search engines, allowing the outlet to benefit from the so-called “Greta [Thunberg] effect] of interest peaking around climate change in 2019.
Hickman also said that Carbon Brief has had a Trump bump, with North American readers overtaking their UK counterparts three years ago. “We also had a 50% increase in readership [in 2020],” Hickman added.
And although Carbon Brief doesn’t publish opinion pieces, it does encourage climate scientists to write about their most recent academic studies in lay-audience terms. This drew in a third of all unique views, Hickman said, although he could divulge the total audience figures for “commercial reasons”.
So as Carbon Brief attempts to be the “island amid the storm” of the often heated and nearly always partisan climate change debate, what does Hickman think of the likes of The Sun and The Daily Express launching green campaigns and committing more resources to the beat as the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) approaches at the end of the year?
“The more the merrier,” he said. “We are highly complementary to the news reporting around climate change...we will rise up with that tide as well.”
🚀 TPM Podcast has launched
The Tech, Power & Media Podcast, exploring the intersection and relationships between technology, media and the power it creates, limits and changes has launched. Subscribe on Spotify and Apple.
💼 Jobs and business
ITV revealed that its operating profits dropped by 33.5% year-on-year to £356m in 2020. The British broadcaster also said in its full-year results announcement that it is “seeing an improvement in advertising market trends”. Piers Morgan, meanwhile, quit Good Morning Britain following a row about Meghan Markle after that Oprah interview.
As BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti continues to go for profitability, a headcount cut has been unveiled at recently acquired HuffPost. It’s still unclear whether BuzzFeed will attempt to go public their year. Bloomberg is the latest to report that it is considering listing via a SPAC. For the uninitiated, here’s a good primer on special purchase acquisition companies.
Murray Walker, the original voice of F1, has passed away aged 97. Here are his best bits. "With half the race gone...there is half the race still to go."
The Washington Post has named its new editor for its London hub. Sara Sorcher will oversee a team focused on breaking news.
Centaur Media-owned Money Marketing has moved from a weekly to a monthly print format.
Alan Rusbridger has quit Ireland’s Commission on the Future of the Media.
BBC Media Editor Amol Rajan has joined the Today Programme.
Insider The Times’ business section with Richard Fletcher.
The Information is launching an array of new newsletters.
New York Times shakes-up board of directors.
How PBS can help rebuild trust in US media.
Bild editor steps aside.
🎧 Podcasts
The Spectator: Life as a Lobby journalist.
BBC Media Show: Andrew Neil.
Longform: Jess Zimmerman.
🤖 Technology and research
High levels of emotional intelligence mean you are less likely to be susceptible to fake news.
Google faces class action lawsuit over alleged data collection habits.
Disney could become the biggest streamer by 2024.
Anti-deepfake tech has now been developed.
Twitter and the end of writing.
📅 Events
Reuters Institute: Race and media relations on Friday 19 March.
News Product Alliance Summit between Tuesday 30 March and Wednesday 31 March.
📧 Contact
For high-praise, tips or gripes, please contact the editor at iansilvera@gmail.com or via @ianjsilvera. Follow on LinkedIn here.
FN 97 can be found here
FN 96 can be found here
FN 95 can be found here
FN 94 can be found here
FN 93 can be found here
FN 92 can be found here
FN 91 can be found here
FN 90 can be found here
Image: Future News, “TV Error" by Sibe Kokke is licensed under CC BY 2.0 https://www.flickr.com/photos/4142290...