it is not really a cause, it is life or death for everyone. so i think it is not really a situation where it s so valid to take sides. we need to get realistic about what is happening. and wolfgang, richard felgate doesn t see it as campaigning. clearly it is often called that. journalism. does it work? who does it convince? does it undermine objective reporting on this subject? it s really difficult to discern between journalism and activism because there is also a form ofjournalistic activism in the form of omission, of simply not covering the topic. and you could argue that a large part of the news industry is simply not covering climate change sufficiently, whether intentionally or not. but increasingly it looks conscious, because it is really hard to look away now. personally, i think that journalism should stay away from activism.
about climate change and started talking - about the climate crisis, i climate emergency, climate breakdown , and we talk about global heating - because these were words that reflect what is - really going on. danny shaw, the bbc no longer balances the question of whether man made climate change is happening, but it is still very careful with its language use. yes, i m sure it is, and quite rightly so, because it has got a very different position from some other media outlets. it has to be very careful. but it s around the evidence and it is around trying to be true to the evidence, but also at the same time reflecting different shades of opinion, but not giving too much weight to opinions that are perhaps outliers and are reallyjust frankly not worth the paper they are written on. wolfgang, i wonder what your assessment is of how the heatwave this summer was reported by the media? i feel at the bbc we are
protests going on. they are very muted, people taking out banners and then rolling them up very quickly so they don t get chased away. we had a small protest during president biden s speech a few days ago. but we are not really seeing the civil society activism that we would expect to see in a free society, because of course here in egypt the sentence is a band and the jails here are heaving with political prisoners. so i think that maybe shows the difference that protest can make when you see a cop happening where it is almost more resilient. wolfgang, you were nodding there. i remember last year, - i m advising the united nations climate change division - at the negotiations in glasgow,
for that in all of these. they are human, they have got deep down they have fear too about our planet changing with the climate so rapidly. and they have children and loved ones. and i know that even though their whole angle is to anger, they are also human beings who have got complex emotions around this really tricky situation we find ourselves in. and genuinely, i want to open that up with them. well, i ve got wolfgang blau in the studio here. cameron s interview went viral and now that clip has an advert on it which presumably makes money. is the current vogue for direct action, actually good business for the media industry? media likes events, and that is a big challenge for all climate journalism. when you ask a typical news desk editor who decides what to put
fanning the flames? i m joined by cameron ford, who s a carpenter and spokesperson for insulate britain. and richard felgate, a documentary maker who was arrested last week while filming at hejust stop oil protest. also here, wolfgang blau, who left his top job at conde nast and co founded the oxford climate journalism network. danny shaw, who used to be a bbc home affairs correspondent. he s now free to say what he really thinks. and fiona harvey, the guardian s environment correspondent who is at cop27 in egypt and hasjust left a session to get on the phone to talk to us. fiona, what s the mood amongstjournalists? have your stories been cutting through on the front pages this week? well, the mood is pretty grim here, actually. last week, we had the world leaders arrive, there was great fanfare, they had great things to say, it was all hugely interesting. what s happening now is that it s a lot of men in suits gathered in windowless rooms, just pouring over pages of text, deciding wha