Day 8: If it bleeds, it leads; if it’s dull …
I’m feeling a little cynical about my profession today. Here’s how today played out: in a press conference scheduled for early today, the Africa group said it wasn’t happy with the way the Danish hosts of the negotiations had set the agenda for the day.
It’s a pretty long and technical explanation for why it was a problem (hopefully Independent Newspapers will run the full story tomorrow, so I can point you to the details) but basically it was an annoying procedural issue that could have resulted in the death of the Kyoto Protocol (the only legally binding mechanism currently governing emission reductions).
South Africa and the Africa group protested to the Danes that they wanted the day’s programme reworked to give greater priority to negotiations around the Kyoto Protocol – but said, expressly, that they had no intentions of walking out of the talks in order to get their way.
So while I was busy tapping out my story in the press room, I got one report from back home saying “Oh my god, the Africa group has walked out of the negotiations in protest”. I fired a quick text message back saying “no, not true”. Another someone sent a similar message. I replied, again: “no, it’s not true, they haven’t walked out!”
But by the time I filed the story, my editor was saying “it’s all over the BBC, Africa’s walked out”.
So I hit the corridors of the climate negotiations to make sure I hadn’t missed anything and, within five minutes, had a reliable source telling me that this is what happened: Africa (like many other developing countries who want to see the Kyoto Protocol live) was unhappy with the way the Danes had scheduled the day’s discussions. That’s all. They expressed their concern with the president of the negotiations, Connie Hedegaard. Then, in acknowledgement of Africa’s objections, Connie agreed to halt talks until the schedule had been readjusted to suit Africa’s (pretty reasonable) objections.
I got onto the phone to my editor in Johannesburg immediately to straighten things out – and reworked the story to reflect what, I hope, was a closer reflection of the truth.
But all over the Western press, the headlines screamed that Africa had walked out of negotiations.
One of my colleagues, a respected and veteran environmental journalist, got so annoyed with the twisted story she was hearing from a bunch of Australian journalists sitting near her in the press room that she went over to have a word. She tried in about four different ways to explain to them that the Africa group had not walked out of negotiations. Alas, they refused to hear her. Because the far more exciting headline was one which read that Africa had walked out.
This reminds me of something we were warned about before the negotiations evens started here in Copenhagen: that it might be in the interests of selling newspapers in the developed world to reflect developing countries as being “disruptive” of proceedings as these negotiations unfold.
Bear in mind that these negotiations are a pretty turgid bureaucratic affair, so it’s hard to wring front page news out of them every day.
I have to say, though, I’m disappointed with my fellow brethren today. Very disappointed indeed. Today’s headline didn’t bleed … so it was twisted until it could lead.
Leonie Joubert is a science writer, reporting for Independent Newspapers from the United Nations climate negotiations taking place in Copenhagen from 7 to 18 December. This is her blog-on-the-side.