One of Germany’s most used news outlets adds climate change section to website, newsletter
Clean Energy Wire
Spiegel Online, one of Germany’s most important news websites, has decided to make climate change a more permanent part of its reporting by giving it its own section on the site as well as creating a new weekly newsletter and publishing a special printed magazine today (27 October) entitled “Departure to Utopia. How to save the environment and prosperity. A solution booklet”. Apart from the current coronavirus crisis, the climate crisis is the most pressing issue of our time, Spiegel editor-in-chief Barbara Hans writes in an announcement. “As a journalistic mega-topic, climate change goes beyond the boundaries of classic news section logic - and deserves special attention,” she writes.
Both the New York Times and the Guardian have made similar changes to their publications, with Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief of the Guardian pledging to readers to uphold and deepen the outlet’s climate crisis reporting and divest from fossil fuels. In Germany, climate policy topics make front page news much more often than a few years ago. A recent initiative called for a regular prime-time show on the climate emergency on public television every night before the major evening news.
