Environmental crisis should be approached in 'human way' says Stephen Dunbar-Johnson

Industry

Published: 31 May. 2023, 20:25

Environmental crisis should be approached in 'human way' says Stephen Dunbar-Johnson

Stephen Dunbar-Johnson, international president of The New York Times Company, speaks during the New York Times A New Climate conference at Bexco in Busan, on May 25. [PARK SEONGGWAN]

BUSAN — Climate change can be too hard of a pill to swallow on a daily basis, especially so when the crisis looms over our everyday lives along with a growing sense of dread.

While the urgency is certainly there, how it is conveyed to the public can and should be changed into a more “human way,” says Stephen Dunbar-Johnson, international president of The New York Times Company.

“We have to walk the line between urgency and dystopia,” said Dunbar-Johnson during an interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily on May 26 in Busan, where the two-day New York Times A New Climate conference took place.

“The story is so big, that people are sometimes in denial, [as if] we can’t do anything about this,” said the Times executive, “and I personally don’t think that’s true.

“I think there’s a lot of things we can be doing, and it’s for us to help explain the complexity of this.”

Dunbar-Johnson believes that, while the enormity of climate consequences should be recognized, journalism’s role is not to be “advocates or activists.”

Rather, “We are there to be truth seekers,” he said.

In his speech on May 26 during a conference session at the World Climate Industry Expo, which was held alongside the Times event, Dunbar-Johnson highlighted the gravity of the ongoing climate crisis, citing UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks saying “We are on a highway to climate hell, with our foot still on the accelerator.”

Despite a looming sense of gloom, however, Dunbar-Johnson emphasized that the focus of the narrative should be shifted from abstract ideas to concrete actions, shedding a bigger light on how we can change and reshape the world.

“Along with big facts, the science is confronting us with a narrative [which is] very often about the cost of the change that is required to avert the process,” the president said during his Friday remarks. “Not enough of the narrative is about the cost of not taking action.”

The Korea JoongAng Daily sat down with Dunbar-Johnson on Friday to discuss journalists’ role in covering today’s climate agenda while conveying the urgency of the accelerating global warming.

The following are edited excerpts from the interview.

Q. Where do you think is the line between fact-based reporting and advocacy or activism?

A. Activism is in the facts. All the science reports are indicating, as UN Secretary-General Guterres said, a hellish future. The facts of the science suggest that the urgency is there — so that in itself should be enough of advocacy.

So the next question becomes how do you cover that.

It's not our role to advocate. Our role is to talk about all the various different solutions, to talk about the challenges, what is the best way to scale solutions, and what are the implications if we don't scale those solutions.

I think the challenge for us in media is not so much about the stuff that gets on the homepage or the front page. It's about how we talk in a human way, that allows people to understand how to meet the challenges. It's not for us to say to people to ‘do this, do that.’ They have to come to their own conclusions. We have to report the facts — and we have to do it in a way that is relatable and human.

And we need to harness all of the resources we have as a news organization to tell these stories in ways that connect with our readers. We now have the abilities with graphics, fantastic photography, video and audio — we have the tools to bring these stories to life, and to make them relatable.

The New York Times set up one of the first climate desks in 2017. Does it have specific rules or values that are prioritized or applied specifically to climate coverage?

The same rule we apply to all of our coverage, which is we do rigorous, independent, and without fear or favor journalism.

I think the exciting thing about what we have done with climate is that we put a big emphasis on it. For us, it's a huge story, which is why we set up a climate desk.

But the climate desk is just one manifestation. Every desk is covering climate now. And we have more and more of our graphics team working on climate stories. Our visual photography is often around climate. More and more of our foreign correspondents around the world are being assigned climate stories.

What is your goal with the latest event in Busan, the New York Times A New Climate, which is the company's first live journalism event on climate in Asia?

We started to do climate events earlier in Glasgow at COP26 in 2020. We decided to do that because we’ve invested a lot in our climate coverage, and thought it would be a very good way of showing that in a live way and focusing specifically on solutions, bringing together government leaders, business leaders, scientists, civil society, and young people altogether.

We then did the same in London in the United Kingdom, New York and San Francisco in the United States, and Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt, but not in Asia before.

Asia is obviously extremely important, and even more so for us, because South Korea is our home in the region. It is the first time we brought this event to Asia and it was right and appropriate that we do so in Busan, in Korea.

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]