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Anita Malli, Sustainability Officer #9 How to communicate the climate crisis? Switch, push away or ignore. This is what environmental psychologists say we do automatically when impending future environmental catastrophes such as the climate crisis are discussed on radio or TV. Whether in traditional programming (on TV, radio or online) or in the future when the Digital ORF has taken shape: Constructive Journalism is an essential approach when it comes to news around the topic of the climate crisis. ORF succeeds in this with its MOTHER EARTH program focuses, which in 2020 reached more than 4.2 million viewers on TV and the same number of people on radio and online.

Relevant questions instead of whataboutism
Constructive journalism also includes an awareness that it's the questions that matter. Do we discuss on TV whether climate change is happening, or how to stop it? Do we ask on the radio how much less eco-friendly e-cars are in the first 50,000 kilometers than combustion cars, or how we will be environmentally friendly and CO2-neutral in our mobility in the future? The widespread whataboutism is an expression of how difficult it is for us as a society to ask the questions relevant to the success of the future.

"Ask the whole country" (Ö3 radio show) about the dilemma of the climate crisis
Although 88% of Austrians are in favor of tackling the climate crisis, only one in two can imagine that diesel and gasoline cars will be history in 20 years.
So there is a big gap between reality and aspiration. Can people really be expected to accept the truth? And who will bring it closer to them? "Environmental Correspondents", as environmental journalists are called in Great Britain, are an essential part of the multi-media editorial teams of the ORF of the future. The cross-cutting issue of "global warming" is thus visibly represented in editorial meetings and makes its way into the living rooms, cell phones and Alexas of the audience. Public broadcasting is a companion in the greatest and most challenging transformation in human history, broadcasts, classifies, provides orientation, distinguishes between facts and fake news, between greenwashing and actual sustainability, and "asks the whole country" about the climate crisis.

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"Mutter Erde"

Focus 2020: "Our climate, our future"- We have it in our hands: In addition to the status quo of the climate crisis, the focus was also on the solutions and opportunities of climate protection-especially for the economy-as well as the lessons learned from the Corona crisis for the
climate crisis. The focus covered more than 150 articles in all ORF media from September 12 to 20.