Equipping Audiences Without Silver Bullets: Goals and Challenges of Climate Solutions Journalism

Solutions journalism is intended to support responses to complex threats. However, it is unclear what it means for reporting to inspire or empower audiences within specific contexts such as climate change. Moreover, climate change can pose unique communication challenges to practitioners due to high levels of complexity and uncertainty. This study uses in-depth interviews with 25 environmental journalists to investigate goals and challenges of climate solutions journalism. Overall, interviewees aimed for solutions coverage to improve audiences’ understanding of the problem of climate change while inspiring hope that expansive change could be achieved and that individual action has a meaningful role to play. In terms of encouraging action, journalists sought to support audience agency and offer pathways for involvement in climate solutions. However, the complexity of climate solutions presented challenges identifying and evaluating high-impact solutions. This difficulty was magnified by industry weaknesses and a lack of access to trustworthy resources. Theoretically, climate solutions coverage appears to take an active role supporting solutions, but journalists place high priority on equipping audiences to think critically about responses to climate change. Meanwhile, there are plentiful opportunities for universities, research organizations, and academic publications to help alleviate barriers to quality climate solutions coverage.