Quality journalism and advocacy in raising climate awareness: The case of The Guardian

Abstract

The Anthropocene era describes human activity as the decisive factor in creating environmental imbalance on the planet. This emergency is intensifying the need for journalism to raise readers’ awareness about the climate crisis. This study concentrates on the coverage generated by the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27). Using a mixed quantitative and qualitative method, The Guardian’s international digital version was analysed to find out the scope of journalistic quality on the climate issue, applying the variables accredited with the Journalistic Value Added (JVA) analysis technique to the sample (N = 238). The results show that the editorial policy of commitment to the climate emergency taken on by The Guardian coincides with essential criteria of quality journalism, making the medium a point of reference, although misproportion still persist such as gender representation among the sources.