Is UK newspaper coverage skewed against renewables?

Writing in Friday’s edition of The Guardian’s environment blog, Duncan Clark claims that “more than half of the coverage of renewable energy solutions in the mainstream British press is negative”, after being sent some “interesting and previously unpublished” analysis of British newspaper coverage of renewable energy.

“Carried out by the Public Interest Research Centre (Pirc), the research confirms the Mail’s unusually anti-green stance, though it also highlights the remarkable degree of negativity that renewable energy receives in the UK press more broadly – including in the Sun.

“As Pirc researcher Tim Holmes points out in his introduction, press coverage is important because it can influence not only “what people perceive and believe” but also “what politicians think they believe”. Indeed, politicians take the temperature of public opinion partly through the barometer of the press, and consistently negative coverage of renewables will doubtless “limit the perception of political space and impetus for political action”, as Holmes puts it.”

Read the full article here>>

Duncan Clark: "Is it significant that more than half the coverage of renewables in the mainstream British press is negative?" Photograph via The Guardian website: Sang Tan/AP