…as MISA-Lesotho develops toolkit to aid media in reporting on the subject
Mathatisi Sebusi.
The media has been urged to prioritise reporting on climate change, nutrition and the environment as these were subjects vital for the survival of humanity.
It was the duty of journalists to educate communities on the effects of climate change and how to mitigate them. The media tended to focus too much on politics and other “sensational” stories at the expense of these beats which had become very critical for humanity.
This is all according to MISA-Lesotho’s Programmes and Fundraising Manager, Mzimkhulu Sithetho, who addressed a consultative meeting with experts on climate change, environment, and nutrition at Kick4Life in Maseru this week.
The experts were engaged by MISA-Lesotho to help develop a media kit to guide journalists on reporting on climate change, environment, and nutrition.
According to Mr Sithetho, a study conducted by MISA Lesotho revealed that climate change, nutrition and environmental stories were suppressed, while politics and sensational news were given the centre stage as they dominated news reports across Lesotho’s media.
Climate change, environment and nutrition were considered boring subjects. Yet they were central to the survival of humanity. Neglecting them had led to escalation of misinformation, Mr Sithetho said, causing people to make uninformed decisions.
Hence in a bid to address the misinformation and seek the buy in of media houses and journalists on the importance of reporting on climate change, nutrition and the environment, MISA-Lesotho had partnered with the World Food Program to launch a climate change and nutrition reporting project. The project is a sub project of another one called Improving Adaptive Capacity of Vulnerable and Food-insecure Populations in Lesotho (IACoV).
The reporting project will see the development of a media kit aimed at capacitating editors and journalists on reporting on climate and nutrition.
IACoV is a four-year project, financially supported by the Adaptive Fund to the tune of M150 million. It was started in 2020 and will come to an end in October 2024.
It is being implemented by the WFP in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment and Forestry and Lesotho Meteorological Services (LMS).
The project intends to address the barriers to climate change adaptation by strengthening the capacity of the government on early warning signs, while also ensuring that optimal knowledge and utilization of climate information are tailored to community needs.
Mr Sithetho said climate change and nutrition issues affected everyone hence should be given priority by media houses.
“These are stories of people’s lives, challenges, and victories on a daily basis. They are of importance but are rarely reported, and when they are published, they are normally hidden in middle pages as they are not considered to be ‘selling stories’,” Mr Sithetho said.
“We need to come up with ways to train journalists to effectively report on these issues in a way that will attract listeners and readers, and consequently influence editors to lead with such stories.”
Mr Sithetho said he understood that media houses were in business hence they chose stories which “attract more traffic and bring more revenue to their companies”.
However, behavioural change was needed, not just for media houses and journalists, but also for consumers so that “they can have more interest in impact driven stories”.
MISA-Lesotho Director, Ntsukunyane Leketho, said the Reporting on Climate and Nutrition Project was targeted at curbing misinformation on climate change, among other things.
Mr Ntsukunyane said currently they were at the consultation stage of formulating the media kit. After the meeting with experts, they would be consulting with editors and journalists for their input in the development of the media kit.
He added they will also vigorously train journalists on climate change and nutrition reporting, and influence editors to get their buy-in on publishing the stories
“The experts will help us build the media kit in both English and Sesotho languages, which will serve as a guiding tool for journalists to effectively report on these beats,” Mr Ntsukunyane said.
The media toolkit, he said, would ensure journalists’ access to international resources to use when reporting on climate change and nutrition.
MISA-Lesotho’s objective was to build a highly consultative document that aligned with available local and international climate change and nutrition legal documents.
The tool would also be developed in a way that would enable journalists to report in a way accessible to all and sundry to get everyone “to understand that climate change is everybody’s business and a national concern”.
For her part, Mamorake Rafeea, a nutritionist from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition, said the tool kit would help the media to speak with one voice on climate and nutrition reporting, thus curbing confusion which currently reigned among Basotho over the subjects.
She encouraged MISA-Lesotho to urge journalists to integrate climate and nutrition reporting into other news beats.
“If a climate or nutrition story can be integrated in to a political or health story, this means that it will have more impact and attract more audience,” Ms Rafeea said.
She said MISA-Lesotho should also consider aligning itself with climate and nutrition national policies when developing the media kit.
Lekhooa Fokothi, a researcher from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry said MISA-Lesotho should ensure transparency, consistency, and sustainability of the project by learning from the gaps in previous projects.
“For this project to succeed, you need to learn from gaps of previous projects to avoid a circle of repeated mistakes. Some projects die and fail to be sustainable beyond project life. When you start now, ensure that everything is done accordingly to the end,” Mr Fokothi said.
