COP-out: Why are so many media outlets failing to tell the climate story?

Climate Outreach criticizes the media's reliance on repetitive imagery—specifically negotiators and protesters—during UN climate conferences, arguing that this approach makes the issue seem remote and technocratic. The organization advocates for the adoption of a more diverse visual language that reflects the human impact of climate change to better engage the public.

• Media coverage of annual climate conferences is dominated by uninspiring and clichéd images for three consecutive years, specifically focusing on negotiators in suits and protesters in polar bear suits.
• Reporting on UN conferences often focuses narrowly on meeting proceedings rather than providing the essential context of related issues, which can lead to a decrease in public concern. A study in Nature Climate Change regarding German media coverage of COP21 in 2015 found that a lack of context left readers feeling the problem was being handled by politicians and was irrelevant to their own lives.
• High-profile media outlets, including the BBC, the Washington Post, and the New York Times, typically use staged photos of protesters or posing politicians, despite research showing that people are uninterested in or turned off by such imagery.
• There is a disconnect between the actual visual reality of climate change, such as the extreme weather events that hit the Caribbean Islands and the US Atlantic coast, and the imagery used in media coverage of climate conferences.

APA

Corner, A. (2017). COP-out: Why are so many media outlets failing to tell the climate story? Climate Outreach. https://climateoutreach.org/cop-out-why-are-so-many-media-outlets-failing-to-tell-the-climate-story/

Chicago

Corner, Adam. COP-out: Why are so many media outlets failing to tell the climate story? Climate Outreach, 2017. https://climateoutreach.org/cop-out-why-are-so-many-media-outlets-failing-to-tell-the-climate-story/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Corner |first1=Adam |title=COP-out: Why are so many media outlets failing to tell the climate story? |publisher=Climate Outreach |date=4 December 2017 |url=https://climateoutreach.org/cop-out-why-are-so-many-media-outlets-failing-to-tell-the-climate-story/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{corner2017copout, author = {Corner, Adam}, title = {{COP-out: Why are so many media outlets failing to tell the climate story?}}, publisher = {Climate Outreach}, year = {2017}, month = dec, url = {https://climateoutreach.org/cop-out-why-are-so-many-media-outlets-failing-to-tell-the-climate-story/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }