Shame: Fewer “Journalists” Signing Up For Bonn Climate (scam) Talks

Maybe they’re spending too much time of Orange Man Bad? Maybe the yutes just do not like to leave the office to do stories?

Fewer journalists register for Bonn talks, as cuts to climate reporting bite

The number of journalists registered to attend the annual climate negotiations in Bonn has declined this year, as climate reporters have been let go and media coverage of climate issues falls around the world.

Data from UN Climate Change, which runs the two weeks of talks, shows that just 135 media representatives have signed up to attend. Climate Home News analysis of previous data shows this is the lowest figure since 2021, when COVID-19 restrictions limited travel and the Bonn talks were held in a hybrid format to enable online participation.

What their data shows is a decrease during the Trump years, with 71 attending in 2018, 93 in 2019, 59 in 2021, then a spike till a drop. News outlets can’t afford to be sending their employees on long, fossil fueled trips to listen to Elites say they need to take the money and freedom from the peasants.

The number of journalists that actually attend the talks will not be known until later this month but is typically significantly less than are registered. Press conferences, held back-to-back each day by campaign groups, have been sparsely attended in the first few days and often filled mainly with climate campaigners and researchers rather than journalists.

Alexandra Endres, a reporter for German-language website Table Briefings, told Climate Home News in Bonn there are fewer German journalists covering the conference in-person. “I think it is important to have more journalists covering the negotiations because when the climate coverage increases, the interest of the public grows,” she said.

Yeah, I think it’s just that people are tired of this cult stuff, especially when there are real world issues to be concerned about.

Media outlets that have registered fewer journalists than previous years, or no journalists, include global heavyweights like Reuters, Bloomberg and the BBC, as well as German outlets like Deutsche Welle and ZDF television, and specialist publications like business information service Argus and climate broadcaster We Don’t Have Time.

Activist Harjeet Singh, who is in Bonn advising the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative, said that “the empty press seats here in Bonn are a warning signal. While the world’s gaze is often fixed on the annual COP summits, the real-world consequences of the climate crisis—from financing the fossil fuel transition to protecting vulnerable populations—are being shaped, or ignored, in these mid-year negotiations right now.”

Weirdly, none of the people “negotiating” are giving up their own use of fossil fuels.