Talking Shop: Amplify Your Impact: Social Media Strategies for Climate Journalists

Transcript

Kyle Pope: Hello, everybody, welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank you very much for coming today. I’m Kyle Pope. I’m one of the co founders of Covering Climate Now — and really, really happy to have all of you at this conversation today. For those of you who don’t know, Covering Climate Now is a global collaboration of more than 500 newsrooms around the world. We’re organized by journalists for journalists, and our sole goal is to help journalists around the world do a better job of covering what we see as the defining story of our time. We do that through convening discussions like today’s webinar, where journalists can talk amongst ourselves about how to tackle common challenges. We train newsrooms in English and in Spanish and provide cutting edge analysis in our climate beat and other newsletters. We establish standards of excellence in climate reporting through our annual awards program, and all of our services are free of charge to our partners. You can find out more information about Covering Climate Now and apply to join if you’re not already part of our partnership at our website coveringclimatenow.org 

So on to today’s topic. For the first time, social media has overtaken television as Americans top news source. That’s according to Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and its 2025 digital news report, which was released earlier this month. The report’s authors write, “the proportion accessing news via social media and video networks in the United States, at 54% is sharply up— overtaking both TV News at 50% and news websites or apps at 48% for the first time.” Most newsrooms are investing more resources into social media distribution, recognizing its potential to expand the reach of their stories beyond traditional website page views. However, not all newsrooms are progressing at the same pace. This social media webinar will take a look at how the social media landscape has changed in recent years, the challenges journalism faces on social media and the opportunities that social media provides for individual journalists, newsrooms, and new institutions. Just a plug here — this webinar kicks off what’s going to be a summer-long focus at Covering Climate Now on social first climate coverage. I want to mention that, and you’ll hear more about it in a second, for anybody who’s interested, we’re doing a deeper dive into social first climate journalism through a workshop which is a very hands on way to like, hear from people who do this and who have who do it well and really work on ways that you can help your newsroom do a better job on social when it comes to climate coverage. So I really encourage you to take a look at this. Again, it’s free. You’ll see the link for the program in the chat. 

So that’s it for me. Thank you all very much for coming. We’re really, really excited that you’re here. We’re really excited about this whole focus through the summer on what I think is a really important initiative for climate journalists. I’m going to turn it over now to my colleague Teresa Riley, who’s the audience editor at Covering Climate Now. Thanks to her, and thanks to the guests, and I look forward to the conversation. Thank you.

Theresa Riley: Thank you. Kyle, Hi everyone. I’m Theresa Riley, I’m the audience editor here at CCNow. I’m so excited about this webinar and the guests that we have joining us today to talk about how journalists, especially those covering climate, the environment, and weather, are using social media effectively to promote their work, build trust, and grow audiences— especially younger audiences. Thank you for putting in the chat where you’re from. We have over 140 people here today. So that’s exciting from all over the US, looks like India, Italy, Netherlands, London. So welcome all!

Joining us today, also to talk about some of the findings from the Reuters digital news report released just last month, as well as other research findings from the Reuters Journalism News Institute, ongoing project to explore public engagement with news and information about climate change is Dr. Waqas Ejaz. Waqas is a post doctoral research fellow with the Oxford Climate Journalism Network, and is the lead author of “Climate change and news audiences report analysis of news use and attitudes in eight countries,” which was released in January. His research interests include studying digital media effects, climate change, political and computational communication. Welcome to Waqas. Also with us is Ginger Zee. Ginger is the chief meteorologist and chief climate correspondent at ABC News. Ginger has been there before, during, and after almost every major natural disaster, reporting for Good Morning America and across ABC news broadcasts and digital platforms. From Hurricane Katrina to recently being in the eye wall of Hurricane Ian, she has covered wildfires from California, France and Australia, blizzards across the nation and tornado outbreaks from Alabama to Oklahoma. Ginger has employed her lifelong passion for the atmosphere and married it with compassion and humanity as these stories are always about the people the storms impact. Please join me in giving our panelists a warm virtual welcome in the chat or with your reaction icons. 

And now I want to give you an idea of how we’ll run through this. In the first half hour, I’ll pose questions to Ginger and Waqas, and in the second half hour, we invite questions from the audience. You can submit your questions via the Q and A button at the bottom of your screen. Please be sure to include your name and the name of your news outlet. And while this webinar is open to everyone, please know that we’re taking questions from journalists only. So Waqas, I’d like to start with you. The first slide that we’re going to put up, details the stat that Kyle mentioned in his introduction that for the first time, social media has surpassed TV and websites for news consumption in the US. Can you talk about that and share some more highlights from the new Reuters digital news report on how audiences are  increasingly relying on social media for news?

Dr. Waqas Ejaz: Yeah. Thank you very much, and it’s a pleasure to be here. So I think it’s something that a lot of people, since the news… the report came out, we have been hearing a lot about this that US has, you know, social media finally has crossed. But since we have been working on this, we knew this is going to happen sooner or later, and now that this is the time when it is eventually, everybody can see it. So I can understand the shock, but it’s not really a shock. This is a lot of things has gone by. And as you can see in the plot that and Kyle has mentioned, is that the TV and the traditional news media is slowly receding in terms of the audience preference. I mean this at the aggregate level, this is the big headline, so to speak, but there is a lot that is underneath it. And again, this is not something that is hidden or that is a secretive thing, but all of this is basically driven by young people, and what we can now see in the report as well, we have highlighted that it is basically a direct relationship between young people preferring the social media or digitally native outlets, and then that audience is now slowly moving away from traditional media and going towards the social media. Hence this, this change has become more and more evident. And I mean, if we, if we look at the a bit more nuanced approach on this, how this age thing plays out. So the shifts are in large part driven basically by younger group, as I mentioned, so called the digital and social natives, and over half of under 35 years of age in the US, that is 54% of people between 18 to 24 and 50% of those who are between the age of 25 and 34 now say that social media networks are the main source of information. And the story here is that it’s it’s not the percentage at the aggregate level, it’s how much that has changed between just between 24 and 25.  13% percentage point has been increased among people who are aged between 18 to 25 just last year, and 6% bump among those who are between 25 and 34. This is, this is how I see…this is the trend, so to speak. And you can… if we move on further to just another part of the headline is that, I think a lot of people who have seen this, they can kind of, especially from global south countries, they can see or they are actually saying, “Welcome to the club.” Because US has now officially kind of leaning more towards social, first club that’s how we framed it, where we have countries like Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, for example, they have always been the social media first audiences. Now, it may not seem as a surprising thing to a lot of us who are working in the field, but when we put this into perspective, for example, when we compare this with the with the other investment world, for example, in Europe, this is not the case, as you can see, the differences are still pretty significant, although we are seeing that there is a bit of a bump going across these media platforms, across these countries. But the speed with which the US has moved more towards a social first is something that is making a lot of news organization a bit nervous, I would say. And if you look across the platform, specifically at an aggregate level, and this is again, something that we have known for quite some time, the good old days of Facebook are, I mean, officially, we can say that it has been, you know, going down the peak has, you know, Facebook has long been in terms of people choosing it as a source of information.And part of this is how the algorithm has and how the focus of the company has changed, and part of it is the people’s preferences. And I don’t think so that the Facebook that we have seen when it was, you know, between 2019, or 2020, I don’t see that that is going to ever be the case with Facebook  as people’s preference, for example, moving more towards visual video content has kind of made it. And we can see this in the numbers as well. YouTube continues to climb up. Same is the case with Instagram. We are seeing the bump because that’s where the people’s preferences are. They want to consume more video first kind of narrative and the news. So this is sort of the broad headline stories from the DNR. Of course, there is a lot more across the countries, and I’m happy to answer any question that we have related to these.

Theresa Riley  12:17

Thanks. Waqas, that was great. Ginger, we’re so excited to have you here. You have more than 1.2 million followers on Instagram, nearly 700,000 followers on Facebook, and nearly 100,000 followers on Tiktok. I’m thinking maybe we can start with having you talk a little bit about the types of content that you post and how your thinking on social first content has evolved over the years. When did you start doing social content in the first place? 

Ginger Zee: Well, first of all, thank goodness I did, because apparently…  we know that news is as far as television news is going, is rapidly in decline. That’s not the first time that I’ve seen that. I think there are so many reasons, but it’s interesting to see from the social perspective. Because I have to be honest, most of our industry will usually point to the change in cable, the change in, you know, cord cutters, and the the change in the way that people consume news, how streaming isn’t picking up. Well, that’s where it’s going, right? And so I’d love to tell you that I was some like foreshadower 15 years ago, and I really knew what I was doing, but I honestly found that social has always and continues to be the place where I can have the most nuanced discussion — which most climate subjects need and require, because the time allotted, especially at a network level, is very difficult to get what you need to get in. And then, more importantly, the engagement. And I have found such power and…I don’t mean power in a control way, I mean powerful that I’ve learned a lot, and I think I’ve allowed my audience to learn a lot by us having a conversation, which is what social media, in its best form, allows you to do. So I started, I went back because I didn’t really know you asked when I had started these accounts. And Instagram was in 2013, Facebook was 2008 and Tiktok was 2020, and truly, Tiktok is not my strongest. I’m still trying very much to up my game there, but it’s not as natural for me. I think that’s what tells you you’re old. And so, but then what wasn’t mentioned here is obviously still X or Twitter. I have a lot of engagement there, because the weather world had always had a lot, and so I still have a lot of engagement on that, and I have a ton of bigger following than any of the rest of mine on there. And so it’s hard to, you know, ignore. And then I’d say YouTube is the place where myself and then my field producer and I have really put…and our climate unit, have put a lot of effort into building. And I’m glad to see YouTube on the rise that way, even for news, because, again, I’d love to say I knew that, but I think Dan Manzo, who I work with, who’s a meteorologist, but also my field producer, he’s a YouTube consumer, and he’s like… you know, years ago, he’s like, “we gotta get on this, we have to do this.” And so we’ve been finding ways to do that. Now that I’ve understood, and again, I would love to say I knew so much before, but as I’ve just kind of learned along the way, I have found that utilizing my social media to build confidence from my viewers slash following, but also learn from them, is my favorite way. And that’s what the YouTube is actually kind of focused on, the series we do is called Climate A to Z, and we usually take a comment or question or something that comes from a viewer or a follower. It’s hard for me to even change my vernacular… and we take that and turn it on its head, and I explain something, and I use my best.And a lot of times I’m explaining something that I know, but many times I’m learning along the way too. And I think that that’s that seems to work really well. So one of them, for example, that I can point to on the YouTube side that was surprising is, you know, forever we’ve been getting “Stop talking about climate. You talk about climate too much.” I get that most of the time. “Well, climate’s got, of course, she’s going to mention climate change,” and it’s like, okay, I’m used to that, and I know how to react to that, and I know what to engage with and what not to engage with. But yeah, of course I’m going to talk about climate because it’s the story. But I started getting more, “Why aren’t you talking about climate in this case, why didn’t you talk about it in this case?” And I thought, well, that’s a great video. Let’s make one where we say, and sometimes there’s a legitimate reason, and sometimes it was a function of time. And you know, there’s…. you can reverse things, and then I think that gets that is received very well by an audience. And so I have found I’ve just really liked it, and thank goodness, because this is where it’s going.

Theresa Riley: Great. Thank you, Ginger, that was really cool.

Ginger Zee: Yeah. And I did want to mention too, I’m sorry. One thing that I evolved and changed is I used to use social for what it was meant to be in the first place, I shared a lot of personal things. I don’t do that anymore. I haven’t shared my kids faces in forever. I don’t… I built the brand to tell the story of what I’d like to keep telling. Sorry, I just want to make sure to add that.

Theresa Riley: Yeah, no, that’s good. Waqas, I want to do a little bit more of a data enlightenment from you. You were the lead author of another Reuters report released in January on climate change and news audiences in eight countries. Um, even though your findings aren’t specifically about social media, I think that it’s helpful to hear what you learned about people’s consumption of climate news generally, and then we can talk about how that might translate into social media platforms versus traditional platforms.

Dr. Waqas Ejaz: Yeah, so, I mean, while you’re putting up the slides, I think it’s, I think it’s to put it that way. I think we did want to sort of talk about, not specifically social media, but the idea behind running the project was basically to see how people actually engage with information on climate change. So there was not a lot of work which actually talks about, okay, we have a lot of work that talks about media in general and climate change, but not like specifically talking about when we are thinking about consuming news on climate change. How does that pan out? So my research has always, not always, but has been around climate change in context that we don’t know much about. So there’s a lot….you’ll have to do a lot of clicks through the slides, there’s a lot of animation into it. So for example, I talked about this misinformation in Pakistan, and how climate change there navigate this. But in Oxford, what I have been doing is what we call Oxford Climate Journalist Network. This is a cohort of 100 journalists, mostly climate journalists, we host them for for six weeks, six months, sorry. And we have, we go through a lot of different training, capacity building programs. And I am dealing with the research component, which is basically looking into these eight different countries, how people in these eight different countries are engaging with the climate related information. And I want to start with the first slide, if you Theresa, if you can put up the next one. So we have so far published three reports, as Theresa mentioned, so we know that people are worried about climate change. We have seen this across three years. We have seen this across the globe, actually, that this has been a consistent worry that people are worried about both the how the climate is changing the world and they are worried about the planet. 

So…the next slide, yeah. And then, while they are interested, specifically talking about worry and interests, so they are also interested in climate related information. So across these eight countries, you can see there are two points to make here: one that is sort of a not so distinctive, but there is a clearly preference when it comes to, for example, Brazil, India, Pakistan. People are higher, 90s or 80s, they are interested in consuming information on climate change, compared to, let’s say, U, US, where, this is just a three quarters where people are interested. There is slightly more interest. One could attribute this this because, well, these countries are much more vulnerable to climate change, hence, there is a more appetite for knowing more about these kind of issues. Next….since they are worried, so logically, it is expected that how much they are exposed to climate related information and sort of this is a good news for all the people who are covering media climate change, because we hear this all the time that we are putting out the news, but people are not consuming news. As you can see across those eight markets, the majority do come across the climate related information rather recently. And I mean, of course, there is variance across countries, but overall, we see that there is a there is a genuine pattern that people are much more likely to consume climate rather recently. Now one can attribute this maybe increased frequency of extreme weather events, which push media to cover climate change, or by other motivations that people have to be exposed to that information. 

And where do they come from? What kind of platform they prefer? That was one of the key questions. And we are tracking this across three years now, and this is the point probably is much more relevant to the present webinar as well. As you can see that no matter how we frame it, and I, you know, I talked about the report from the DNR that how the legacy media is kind of losing its, you know, mojo, so to speak. But when it comes to climate change, there is a bit of relevance here as well. But I do want to caveat that what you see is the agregate 31% people still prefer television news, which is good, but if you see the bars and if you see the so the dots, there is a lot of variance. By that, I mean that there are countries in our sample, for example, who prefer online and social media. For example, countries that you would otherwise not think about, for example, India and Pakistan, their information consumption pattern indicates that social media is the main source of information when it comes to climate change. There are multiple reasons, one, television news or the traditional news do not really cover these kind of issues in those countries, despite being, you know, the vulnerable communities facing extreme weather events and partially because the audience preference there has not really changed. Our heightened sense of urgency regarding the issue hasn’t really diffused among the masses there. So the legacy media continue to run with the typical, you know, the same old, political stories, hard stories, whereas when people are worried about these issues, they normally go for the alternative media. As for the as DNR also reflected….so I think it is much more prevalent when it comes to climate change, that video is by far the most preferred format when it comes to climate change. And there’s no surprise we have…I hope most of us have seen David Attenborough’s work. I mean, if it’s not for the interest in the content, I mean, I would just watch it, just for the sake of the stunning visuals that it offers. So there is a component…there is a preference of video of course. There is no surprise there, but and then, but there’s also, I mean, a lot of climate coverage, or we try to do it when we are doing science communication, that we have to put in numbers and charts. Well, although there is an appetite for it, but nothing compares to a good old video format.

Trust in information sources…I mean, this comes also very important. A lot of people think that, at least this is a genuine perception in a lot of global north countries that media is not trustworthy the information that they put out, they have a sort of a backfire effect, that people tend not to trust these kind of information on climate change and then the polarization into it, but we don’t see that there is a genuine… at least. Remember that we are talking specifically about the climate coverage. It’s not the general coverage on the media. So that was sort of the key what we are trying to do. But here again, you can see the division where the countries on the right they are… mean, one thing is pretty obvious, they are very trustworthy. They are trustworthy of all sources, they are which we have listed. But when it comes to media, we have, you know, in higher 50s or 60s, and that in, for example, Brazil, India, and Pakistan are more trusting the news that they come across on news media, but still a very, very long way to go when it comes to comparison between news media and scientists. 

And I mean, we can’t talk about information and then not talk about misinformation, right? So we looked across….this is a genuine concern across, for example, in the UK and US and in, probably in most Anglophone countries, that people tend to believe in misinformation and climate change. Well, I tend to disagree. I think people are generally very sensible. They know when, when they see a generally sound opinion, regardless where they come across with and as you can see, we don’t find… We have asked at least five different misperception for example, humans are not the reason for climate change, we also ask about how, for example, if the greenhouse gas emissions are the reason for global warming—people generally know that these are the reasons for Anthropocene climate change. They know these kind of things. They don’t tend to disagree with that. I mean, India is a bit of an outlier here, but it I would not attribute this as their propensity of believing in climate misperception. But this is a this is a manifestation of how the data is being collected in countries like in India and Pakistan. But overall, again, sort of a good news for those who are covering climate change. And now I think I would just want to quickly go through sort of a big story that I have, I have so far told you all the good things. So we you looked at, we have to go through these rather quickly now. So we talked about this interest in climate news, very good. But if we look…the next slide, interest has been there, but it is stable across three years. I mean, that’s good, but, and in, for example, in Germany, it has declined. Next…we I talked about the exposure people are consuming news. You remember this chart.

Next…but there is not a lot of variation across three years. It’s pretty stable. Next… and even declined in two countries remain and improved into but in majority, it remained stable. By stable, I mean 1 to 2% difference is not something that I would account for, but the exposure overall, I would say, remains stable, if not decrease. And look at the US from 46 to 34% 11 point difference between 22 and 34 ask me later why that would be, and I probably have an answer to that. Regarding the platforms, why we are here. So this is 2022, 34% TV and 34% online, 19% social media. Next… 31% TV, pretty much same on social media. Next…and this is 2023, 31% TV and 16% social media. So what you see is continuous preference of platforms when it comes to where they want to get their news from. So there’s not a lot of variations that we are seeing across these three years and across these eight markets. 

Next…yeah, the misinformation. Again, a lot has been said about this, but what you are saying is pretty stable. So 28% people tend to believe misinformation in Brazil, 2022, 27 in2024. The US, actually, there is a decline of almost 9% that people are less likely to to believe in misinformation in the US across the years, there’s a sort of a good news there. 

But all in all, what I’m trying to push a point here is that and we have made at this point. Do we have another slide? Maybe…no. Okay. So the point I wanted to do make was, although the media thing, people think that media is serving them well. They feel like they are well served when it comes to climate change, but that’s about it. What we are, all of us, we are trying to do is trying to move the needle. At least, I mean, three years is not long enough data and eight markets are I mean, of course, not representative of the overall trend. But what we call this is the public perception inertia, because we, I feel like they haven’t really that’s, that’s pretty much, that’s it, that they can think about. And this is not just across these platform exposure, on information consumption, I have seen this across their behavior, their propensity to do something about climate change, their trust indicator remains the same. So the overall I feel like, and I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but there is, of course, media has something to do with it. We kind of made people aware. Very nice people are have a higher sense of heightened sense of urgency. That is also notable, but we haven’t been able to move past that point. I mean, if we look at it from the climate science point of view, that’s not the luxury we have if we are seeking action, but if the data and we have fourth year report coming later this year, where I’m hoping I see the the needle being moved. But, uh, fingers crossed for that. That’s the point I wanted to make across. Sosorry. I just took a bit longer than agreed upon. 

Theresa Riley: That’s okay. It was really interesting. Um, one question that we got in the chat, just to, like, sort of give people a basis, is, what was the demographics of your sample size in terms of ages and genders?

Dr. Waqas Ejaz: Yes, so normally we have the quota…so it’s 1000 people across each market, and in eight of these market this is, this was done online. So in UK, US, Japan, Germany, France, and even Brazil, the data looks pretty similar to the national population, whereas in India and Pakistan, since it is not possible to have that representation as and you know, the surveys is a different ball game altogether. But if I sort of sum it up, it represents young. By young doesn’t mean 18 to 24 young means they’re slightly lower age compared to the other countries— English speaking, urban population which is equally divided across gender.

Theresa Riley: Okay, thanks. Okay, Ginger, I want to go back to you. Given this, the idea that like things have kind of remained static in terms of people’s engagement with climate news. One of the things that I really like about your work is that you do make this connection between weather or even other things that you’re doing in your life and climate change. Hang on. I just lost my notes. Can you? Can you talk about how audiences audiences respond to that?

Ginger Zee: Yeah, so they respond all over the board. And I have had success, especially when my engagement or my pieces or my social posts include what I know and what I don’t know, because I think that transparency and the reminder that I am not just a talking head, I went to school for this, I’m a scientist, which showed up in the data there too. Which is nice to see, because I think we sometimes feel like, you know, the people putting I don’t know, bird poop on their face are getting more shares than the dermatologist who’s telling you something with science behind them, and I think that can be disconcerting when you’re out there and trying to make something. So that was really nice to see that that does matter, but I do think that I get… whether it’s people that are upset or people that are happy with that, it gets more engagement. And so that’s really what I’m always going for. I’m not here to please people on my page. I’m here to explain things and to also learn from them. And so if I keep that mindset when I go into each one of these, that’s how.And I saw someone asking, you hear that deniers are 10% of the general population, but 90% of commenters are denier trolls. How do you prevent them from scaring off legitimately curious followers and destroying a forum? I don’t know that I’ve thought about how to not have them scare people off. I’ve definitely not been…I don’t block. You know, unless they’re really disgusting or something’s like, sticks out that way. I can usually tell what they’re there for. And so the people who I’m going to engage with are either going to be someone who has genuine curiosity. And I think the numbers vary, and I don’t know where I heard this, but, and I think it actually showed up in one of those graphics too. It’s the Agree, disagree or don’t really know people? It’s the don’t really know people who I always think is my audience. That’s who I’m here to help out. Of course, I want everybody else, you know, the people that really are invested and know are probably not getting as much from my stuff, but I know just from walking around and in meteorology, you know, like the weather and the atmosphere…people don’t understand.  The number of people, as I’ve brought up the NOAA Weather Radio, which, to me, is one of the oldest tools in the book, that have been like, really? Even people I work with people, it’s like, the first time they heard it. Sometimes I’ll put a picture of a cumulonimbus cloud, and it’s like, people, or they’ll send it to me and be like, “What is this wild mushroom thing?” And I’m like, wow, every day is a new day, you know? So you have to kind of get over yourself and the fact that you’re so embedded and invested in this and stripped back to what the person might actually, who doesn’t have a background in this and isn’t steeped in it every single day. And that’s what I try to do with climate too. So I do think that’s part of why meteorologists are some of the best conduits of climate science. Because as scientists, we already do communicate what we know and don’t know— that is what weather is, and then being able to do that with climate solutions or climate you know, because all every story has that, and I think that transparency helps a lot.

Theresa Riley: Thanks. That’s great. So actually, I like to think that I know a lot about climate change too, but one of the videos that you put up on Instagram, I learned something from. So I wanted to share it with everyone, and then maybe ask you to talk a little bit about your approach on Instagram and other platforms too, for how you introduce these topics. So David, can you roll that video?

Ginger Zee: AI is super energy intensive and uses a lot of water. So there are a bunch of numbers out there, but I’ll just share in general, if you were to Google search something, like we do, if you do that now that they’re using that generative AI and that answer pops up automatically, much of the research shows that’s at least four to five times more energy intensive. So yesterday, when the stocks fell, not just for the chips, Nvidia and things, it also fell for natural gas and for other energy companies, because they’re like, Oh no, we’re not going to need all of that crazy amounts of energy, potentially for AI. So in the environmental way, I’d say that learning how to process and train these AI chat bots, and the future of what we’re using that’s exciting, if we can do that with way less energy. Because I know, personally, I don’t even use that AI answer because it’s sourceless. That’s not how I search things. I much…I like to know more and get some depth. So if you are with me and you want to, in this moment, not be as energy intensive as it can be, you have choices. In Google, this is a really cool trick…if you’re searching, just search what you’re searching and then add at the end of it minus AI. That  will give you the old search, and then you haven’t wasted at least four to five times the energy, because there’s plenty of things that we all do for our carbon footprint, but we even have agency over this.

Yeah…that was a little long, I’d say, but for the Instagram. And I liked hearing him say, Waqas about the video. There’s a place where video works, and Instagram and TikTok are a place like that. Obviously, X is much different. I use it for statements, for links. Facebook is a free for all. I have found like I cannot tell you what works best there. But I love doing that type of video for an Instagram reel. Those tend to get something about the person’s face, and you’re right there with them. And I’m not a big like, I notice this is where I’m not a TikToker like, I’m not going to do, like, get ready with me and talk about a subject that’s different. I’m not there yet, or maybe won’t ever be— I’m not sure. But I don’t know that I have to do that. I like just talking to the camera and saying what I need to say, and telling you something I learned. That was something I learned, that was something I want to do—very straightforward. And those tend to go really well. The number of people who wrote me in my you know, texted me on my phone, DM me, they’re like, “No way. I had no idea. Thank you. ” You know, they’re just those little tips that make a difference.

Theresa Riley: Great. I guess with your YouTube channel, that’s more of like a scripted kind of thing, right? Are these shows that you kind…

Ginger Zee: Yeah, so we usually find a comment. We all kind of keep an eye on my social, and Matthew Glasser, who’s the Senior coordinating producer of our unit, and then Dan and I pretty much put it together ourselves. I write it, Dan shoots it, Matthew edits it. And so we just keep it really tight. And then we also air this on our streaming network, on ABC News Live, which is great. So it has multi platform purpose, and then when we air that, I usually come out on set with the anchor and have a nice conversation, because that is something that streaming has allowed for us to do, is talk about the nuance, and actually, not only the nuance within my you know, YouTube, whether it’s three to seven minutes, but then they let me sit there and answer the questions that the anchor has, which is really nice. But yes, I would say scripted, but scripted in a way that I talk, you know, so definitely not your traditional news looking piece.

Theresa Riley: Okay, got it. Gonna look at audience questions… I mean, we did have one more about misinformation in the comments, and I think you addressed that a little bit Ginger. But how do you handle that? Like, what do you guys normally do?

Ginger Zee: I go for it. I answer everybody, unless they’re again, if they’re gross or they really need to be taken off the page. But I like to address it, because I think when we leave it out there, or we ignore that that does the opposite of what you want it to. Sometimes I wait until I have the right amount of information. When the study on the Antarctic ice came out, I got a lot of comments. The typical guys that come on, and I say guys, because most of them on my pages are at least look like they have handles that are men’s names, they will come on and they everybody kept posting, “Oh yeah. Well, the ice is growing in the Antarctic, so you’ve been lying, you liar.” And so I did take a beat on that one, because I wanted to really do it right. And we actually made an entire Climate A to Z on it. So I waited until I responded. But most of the time, you’ve got, I’ve got a folder full of my favorites that that, you know, 50% of comments I get are the same thing I’ve gotten for the last five years. Those can be taken care of easily. I still do it because, whether they’re there for the right or wrong reasons, I’m like so what? It took me a copy and paste. And then I really dig through and try to make sure that I’ve answered misinformation and the true questions. And the misinformation, like we were just talking about cloud seeding. I’ve done pieces on cloud seeding like, that’s the thing is, I needed to know more. So years ago, when I started seeing this percolate and people talking more about weather modification and starting to get it confused with cloud seeding. I was on the phone with one of my friends who I went to meteorology school with, and he happens to be the state climatologist in Colorado, and he’s like, you gotta see how much we’ve added in ground cloud seeding. And I was like, really? So we went and did a whole story on the growth of ground cloud seeders. And so I had…I make links to answer questions that I’m seeing, right? So, like, I’m I’m making, if I don’t have it in my bookmarks, I’m gonna go make it, and I’m gonna go answer that. And then, like today, because of the Texas flood event, unfortunately, this is another time where we’re seeing all of these people that I think everybody wants to grasp at something and so blaming something that’s not even not, not even physics wise is possible, now I have an answer. And today we aired my Climate A to Z on cloud seeding, and then I will post it again, just as a reminder everybody like this is not possible. Whether we were talking about Dubai or we were talking about Texas or we were talking about Hurricane Helene, here’s why not. And so that repetition, you know… people don’t see it. You have to tell people 100 times sometimes, or fill them in and people miss it. It’s not like they’re seeing every single time. So I’m also not afraid of that, of just the repeat. Very rarely, someone would be like, “man, you posted that too many times.” Doesn’t happen.

Theresa Riley: Great just looking through the questions that have come in from the audience here. I mean one question that really either of you could take would be “social media has taken over traditional news platforms. Does that mean that people are better informed or not.” What do you think? 

Ginger Zee: I mean, I’ll just jump in. No.  I think I’ll use the Cat six lady on TikTok. There was two seasons, two hurricane seasons ago.The Cat six lady got shared so much that it bled into my real life, much like cloud seeding has, and I was telling you all you know, when it goes past this fringe amount of people and social helps it give legitimacy, and then with cloud seeding, we’ve even got lawmakers that have passed laws that are confusing true weather modification, solar geoengineering, cloud seeding and the conspiracy theory of chemtrails. That gives a lot of legitimacy to people to come at you with, like, Oh yeah, well, it’s a law. And so do I think people are getting more informed? No, I don’t. I think that we’re in a really big transitional time. And I always tell myself, like, it must have felt really weird when Henry Ford had this Model T and he starts driving it around and all the horse and buggy people are like, no, no, no, that’s never gonna work. And they’re like, we don’t even have gas stations. Like, that’s what I always talk about with EVs. I’m like, we’re in a weird transitional time. This takes time to change. They didn’t just hop on the Model T and like all get on board and say, we’re good. So I do think that in the media landscape, we’re in the same way. I hope that we figure it out and we stop listening to the lady, the Cat six lady, and we listen to someone who’s coming at you with real science. But no, right now, I don’t think that they are more informed.

Theresa Riley: How about you, Waqas? I mean, I thought that that one stat you had about how people believing misinformation in the US went down, even though their news watching also went down.

Dr. Waqas Ejaz: I think I pretty much I would echo what Ginger said. I don’t think so that…so there is a there is a difference of usage, and there is a difference of believing in misinformation. And I come from a camp, and I don’t know…I have started, I have confidence enough to say it out loud, even in public, that a lot of misinformation, despite us doing it for last 10 odd years with extreme frequency and intensity? I don’t think we have a good handle of how people actually engage with misinformation. We do have some very good signs about who those people are, what are their demographic details? But what happens once you are exposed? That part is still missing. And a lot of people get this, you know, overly nervous that, oh my God, they are now being exposed to misinformation. Now they are going to certainly become climate deniers. This is not how it works. It’s a process. And if I tell you that the people who are having, I mean, there is a lot, there is some work, I won’t say a lot of work, and coming from even in the US, people who are more educated, they tend to believe more on conspiracy theories. I mean, that does, that is counter intuitive, right? But there is a, there is a human psychological aspect that we can use to explain because since I am the educated one, I know better. I’ll do my own research. That kind of egoistic thing kind of make people overconfident. And when I tell you to…okay, for example, when Ginger shows something on a video or something, she does get that pushback that you’re saying it again, or that people don’t believe it, but people do come to terms. And I totally agree with her that it takes time for them, because, look, we have, over the period of we all know, we have read Naomi Oreskes’ book, “Merchants of Doubt.” She published where media has kind of played in a way to propel that climate change is not reality… the scientific consensus not there. So we did our bit, even at the behest of fossil fuel industry, pretty much how we did it with the tobacco industry. So I don’t want to wash our hands off because, and if we have done it over the period of 30 – 40, years, we can’t just expect that just because the digital ecosystem, information ecosystem, has changed, people would stop believing what we have fed them for a very long time and now they’re overnight, they’ll they’ll get more greener than anybody else. So I think we need to take a pause here. We need to do what a good old science communication has always done, stick to the evidence, be forceful, be clear, and be open to the criticism. And I think one of the downsides I see of the social media is that I don’t think so that with all the things that happen, and I’m a big fan of social media and democratization of our information ecosystem, in some of the countries, this actually people don’t really realize, and for in some of the countries, this is the only source of information for people. And the alternative is not just misinformation or bad information. There is no information. So it’s basically a choice between buying the state narrative or buying a slightly unprofessional, ungated, a very raw but very relatable content. So it boils down to you actually. So I think that we as a scientist also need to have some sort of, you know, we need to chin up. We need to be okay with getting some pushback. If we are in the quest of making people change their behavior, which they have learned over a period of time, we can talk about why we can’t really expect them, and if we do, and those who do expect them, I think this is a bit unfair  from the people as well. And that’s why I don’t really buy this sort of extrapolated version of how detrimental misinformation is. It has always been part and parcel of the overall information ecosystem that we have lived in, be it the World War Two until today. I mean, this is not something new, but we are just repackaging it in a different way, and that has made a lot of people nervous. I have done so much other work related to platforms for example. Somehow, again, we have ingested this idea among people that this is the biggest fear that you need to have, that AI is going to, you know, flood your streams with fake news, as if people are dumb enough not to see the difference between actual content and fake content. I think we take this for granted. I don’t buy that, that people are so gullible, and I have now becoming more and more confident in saying it out loud, which is, I hope that I don’t get cancelled, if I’m using Gen Z terms…but I would not play this too much. And what you have seen in the US is, maybe it’s a point worth making, and it’s, again, not a very mainstream point. So they especially we are talking about the US, we see a lot about left, right, Democrat versus Republicans, Republicans are not worried about climate change —we see these different variations between the two groups. I tell you that across the three years that we have been tracking, there is a difference between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to the concern of climate change. We do see their opinion vary on political line. But, and there’s a big but, and this is the kind of but we have been hoping to get to…even now, Republicans are less worried, but that less is 70%… still high.. So if Republic, if Democrats, are worried, let’s say 90% on climate change, Republicans, Republicans are worried 70 – 75% so the difference of their concern for the climate change is narrowing, and I take it as a good sign. And I don’t want to hammer this point beyond a certain level that the polarization is, you know, going to decimate everything we know. Yeah, it exists, and it’s a challenge across many, many different countries. But when it comes to climate change, we do see that the gap is closing, and probably we will come to a point… it could be because we don’t have the luxury now, in a way, we are basically. I mean, Texas is as a Republican state as it gets, and what has happened in the last three or four days, I would have a hard time believing that people would still stick to those kind of opinion going forward. But I would not be surprised that it doesn’t happen, because I know there is a lot, a lot of there’s a lot that’s going on when people come to terms how does how the climate change is impacting them, but their lived experience is perhaps one of the biggest thing. People are realizing that the threat is actually really very, very real, and media is doing its bit, and we just need to just hold our horses, and, you know, don’t push them to change overnight.

Theresa Riley: Yeah, no. I mean, to that point, we had a question that I think… kind of we haven’t really gotten into, like, what kinds of content resonate with audiences? And Kara Hunter…or Kayla Hunter from the Ledger Inquirer in Georgia asks, “Can you expand on the type of news people are interested in on social media? Breaking climate disaster? Hopeful, light stories? Solution stories or investigative news? I’m curious. Ginger like, since you do a bunch of different types of content, is there one type that you find really hits better?

Ginger Zee: The most engaging is something that they can touch or that they can imagine themselves doing. So when I did the Earthships, and I lived in an Earthship, and really dove into what that meant and did a little bit more with climate underneath this kind of beautiful visual of a home in the side of the earth. There was a lot of openness to talking about energy solutions and savings. And this was just a just, this was just like…a very shiny object to get people into that conversation and I thought it went very well. So when people say, oh, “all we want is solutions,” they do want to be empowered, to feel like they can do something, they also want to be taught. In that case, I think showing something, and that’s the consumer in everyone, which is, I don’t know that that’s good or, well, I know that’s not good environmentally, but that you do that, or something they do every day, like a keystroke of AI… or minus AI in a Google search? Absolutely, that’s going to be the most touchable for them when it starts to get data tougher, right? Like you’re just presenting…especially even on TV and Matthew and I are texted a bit because he’s, like, worth bringing up that what we’re doing is really, you know, still reporting and still doing what we’re doing from television, but just making it have a new home. These are all platforms —it’s the same work. And what works works and what gets people involved still works. We don’t have to reinvent it every single time. It’s just going to look different. And I do…I’d love to see numbers Waqas on how you’re…. I don’t know if you’re hopeful or you actually have numbers on people don’t believe AI stories, because this week alone, I’ve gotten congratulatory texts that I got a new job, that I’m leaving ABC, that the I’m pregnant, and my husband and I are splitting. And these stories, or that AI story, and I’m using those as examples, but I’ve seen those in climate stories or in misinformation as well, those are AI generated, and those are, I don’t know that they’re just getting believable enough that it is definitely…it’s confusing people. If not, that they’re believing it to the point that they’re congratulating me on my pregnancy. And it’s crazy. And this is people that I know, these are people you know, not just people online. Anyway, so sorry to veer off the subject, but I just wanted to bring that up. And I think the other thing I always think about is an influencer is really kind of an anchor of news, right? They are now having a producer, or sometimes they’re selling something, sometimes they are. So I do think that we haven’t seen a ton of change in that, in the landscape that way either, we just have a different face on it. So that is how I will go back to it’s still the same deal. We just have to do that. And I’ve had the best…yes, people like solutions. People really like…. of course, disaster or or current topics work very well. People feel engaged. It’s happening to them. They’re the one where it’s 120 for the first time, and they’re, you know, of course, that’s going to be engaging. You know what’s sad, and I’ll just leave it on this —character driven? I don’t know, works as well. You know, where it’s like we met someone and you get involved in their story. I want to find a way to make that work again, because I like that type of storytelling. I like to learn in a documentary style. I enjoy that, but I don’t find that that has gone as well. And my husband does character driven stories every single day and posts them, and he regularly complains how nobody likes that, and it’s not doing anything on social he might as well. It’s a fart in the wind. And I think that is something I’d love to learn how to do better.

Theresa Riley: Great. That’s really interesting. I would like to look into that at this point, we’re probably going to close. Waqas, did you have anything else that you wanted to add?

Dr. Waqas Ejaz: I mean, there’s, there’s a lot I can but I would not, because, as you said, you are closing. So but I think the one last bit, which I just probably what Ginger kind of ended at…the scary part, I won’t, I mean, we do have numbers. We do have some research coming out on AI and news, because that’s what we do, but that’s probably for some other time, how people are engaging with news and how believable they think they are, and if the labels work, and all those different techniques that we are trying to understand across different markets. But as you have mentioned, the fears are real and they are being felt across the industry, a lot more than in public. That’s what I have to say. Industry is far more nervous, and that’s one point the second bit, just on the last minute, I think it is okay to be fear inducing when it comes to climate change. It is okay to not always lean on a positive, hopeful frame. It is okay to make people feel like it’s really, really scary, and it is getting scarier, and all the work that has kind of pushed both us communicators on the topic, has always framed it why we don’t have to do the doom and gloom. I think that positive frame has made it complacent and has kind of become an obstacle to the action. And let’s just not forget that we are human beings. There are some commentaries that we always have driven by fear and a calculated strategic use of fear at this point in time where we are and what the climate science science is telling us, I would urge, since the audience is the reporters, my work actually says that people find this more driven to take action if they feel the coverage they have exposed to is anxiety inducing, or is frightening, or is sending and making them feel helplessness. So that’s the sort of last point I wanted to make.

Theresa Riley: Okay, thank you, Waqas. It’s sad that we only had an hour to talk. This is such a deep conversation. There’s so much to talk about, and I want to thank the both of you for being here. It was really great hearing about your work and what you found out in your research Waqas. And in the chat, I see that Kayla had written that this was really helpful, can we have these types of conversations more frequently and perhaps longer? Well, one way you might be able to do that is with our upcoming social media workshop that Kyle mentioned at the top. This was kind of like the kickoff for that, kind of giving the landscape and kind of talking about social media for journalists. And in that workshop, we’re going to get really hands on. So if you’re interested, we’re accepting applications throughout today, so it closes tonight, but we’re hoping to get a nice group together for three sessions to kind of go over a bunch of this in much more detail and really talk about platform by platform and how to reach audiences there for the best engagement. So that’s where we’ll leave it today, but again, Ginger and Waqas. Thank you very much.