Climate change has become more aware of over the past few years. There have been many studies and stories about how the world is changing and how we might end up. The Newspapers publish stories about this sensitive topic to help give us the knowledge they have found out about a certain story, but is it to be believed by the general public?
All newspapers have a target audience and they create stories to help build an understanding between them and that certain type of person. But, because of that target audience, the story may have been exaggerated or stretched so they can sell more copies. The Tabloids are especially good at this as some of them like The Sun or the News of the World like to exaggerate the total truth behind the story so they can sell more. As both of the newspapers can be read by a 6 year old, the people who read it are more likely to believe this over other sources.
Climate change is an ongoing topic in today's news and new discoveries are always within the next day's newspapers and tv news. But newspapers can change the truth slightly to make the paper more popular, but this can have a knock on effect if the readers find out about this. Also, some of the readers of the newspapers do not really take notice of the Climate change story unless it is really eyecatching.
Broadsheet newspapers like the Guardian and The Independent are targeting more middle class people and have a lot more fact within them. With regards to reliability, the broadsheets are more reliable than the tabloids, as they usually sell well for being more factual and having more eyecatching stories about the real world and not like The Sun or News of the World who usually talk about Sex or Drugs or Crime.
Climate Change has a significant link to Sustainable Development where alternative resources are needing to be discovered, tested and put into action to help run the world after non-renewable resources have been used up. Newspapers across the UK rarely show this link, unless it is a story that is highly valuable in the media. This is one example of a newspaper relating a story to climate change and sustainable development:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/27/green-new-deal-climate-change
Being a broadsheet, it sticks to the point of what is happening and this is the kind of story that sells papers. People in society today are more aware of what is happening to our planet and need to be updated with the information for everything that is happening with Climate change. Slightly changing the story to sell papers would not be good as it could lose its readers if the news is slightly wrong as many people want to know the solid truth about that story.
To conclude, most newspapers slightly change the truth to help their newspapers sell faster. Not all of them do but some. As this stands, it has been working for ages but when it comes to a story to do with a sensitive topic like Climate Change, it can cause readers to read more reliable papers. Also, many newspapers look at Climate Change, but rarely look at it with regards to sustainable development. Only the more reliable papers look at both together and with the link above, this shows how newspapers look at them together and link it up properly.
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Do you think all the reports in broadsheet newspapers are 'reliable'?
This report from The Independent has an eye-catching (and 'sensational'?) headline about climate change, yet in the main body of the text it is clear that the conclusions drawn are from observations from one year only.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/swans-stay-in-warm-siberia-975515.html
Is this a 'reliable' report?
Can we really attach class to type of newspaper? Why should that be the case? Are you saying that so-called 'working class' people have the intellectual abilities of six year olds? Why should that be the case?
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