Should the climate be considered a higher cause?

Oriane Sarrasin (UNIL): "In our field, popularisation is not necessarily something that is valued, and when faced with simplification, scientists are sometimes afraid of how their colleagues will view the credibility of their work".

Julia Steinberger (UNIL): "Universities have an elitist history and in fact we are trained to make our work intelligible to an executive audience."

Marion Faliu (RTS): "It's a marriage of opposites, you are trying to be precise, while we are trying to make people understand what it really means."

Marion Faliu (RTS): "In practice, getting scientists to come to us at the 19h30 news show is a challenge in itself. We have some extremely competent people, but often women refer us to colleagues, although they have the requested competencies.

Oriane Sarrasin (UNIL): "To express yourself in the media, you have to get out of your comfort zone. Even if you haven't published dozens of studies on the subject, for sure, you have the necessary knowledge to respond in a few sentences on the 19h30 news show. However, you have to be flexible and prepared to travel, sometimes to Geneva and be available the same evening. When you have 28 seconds, it's essential to adapt your message, and that's something you have to learn.

Rachel Haübi (Heidi.News): "I'm less and less interested in just simplifying scientific studies, but rather in asking myself how I can be more relevant, less abstract and more constructive for readers. It's time to talk about concrete solutions and ensure rigorous, critical follow-through with a Swiss focus."

Marion Faliu (RTS): "As a TV journalist, it's difficult, you have to captivate people very quickly and there's information fatigue, so we prefer to cover less often, but in greater depth."

Duc-Quang Nguyen (Le Temps): "We have to cover the subject of climate without tiring the reader or being alarmist. We need to focus on solutions journalism, but that's not always an easy sell."

Julia Steinberger (UNIL): "Scientific positivism does us a huge disservice. We don't have to come on a TV set still expressing doubts and margins of error. We have enough information to communicate our conclusions with confidence. We don't have to wait until we are 99.9% certain before sharing them. This is what I call the 'more research is needed' syndrome.

Rachel Haübi (Heidi.News): "I have a relationship of trust with readers. I'm not there to convince, but to maintain that relationship. As journalists, we're afraid of being labelled as activists, because that would undermine the very meaning of our work. Before the IPCC mentioned energy sobriety, talking about degrowth in the media was taboo."

Marion Faliu (RTS): "I've noticed that society sees scientists as belonging to one camp. The public no longer takes scientific endorsement for granted; instead, they think that scientists are telling the truth they want to tell."

Marion Faliu (RTS): "In the COVID context, we adopted a didactic approach to answer as many questions as possible. However, it wasn't easy for the climatologist who intervened, as she had to deal with a great deal of aggression. She did this in all conscience, but it can be frightening, especially on such polarizing subjects."

To learn more about the Science-Media meeting, read the previous article entitled "Journalists owe it to themselves not to abandon their critical role, regardless of their affinities. "

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