Syndicated media:

If you follow us on Twitter, you’ll know that we will regularly call out publications which are engaging in spreading misinformation or promoting greenwashing.

The reason for calling them out is simple and twofold: Firstly to raise awareness amongst well-intentioned people who may take such misinformation at face value, and provide links to detailed information which counters the untruths of an article.

The second purpose is to try and change the media landscape in which we live. Either by challenging established systems which readily allow misinformation to slip through the editorial net, or just to reach out to journalists and question the lack of balance – while also offering them the opportunity to learn more about the Climate Crisis.

Education – both for readers and journalists alike – is crucial in the face of the Climate Crisis.

While we hear great promises from the editors of Irish publications that they will do more to cover the Climate Crisis and play a role in the fight to negate the worst possible outcomes, little has changed in the last year.

In fact, in recent months we have become increasingly concerned about the growing number of syndicated articles in the Irish media which have promoted disinformation and greenwashing. This is the subject of today’s article.

What Is Article Syndication?

News syndication is nothing new. In fact, for nearly two centuries agencies have been engaged in distributing news articles to interested newspapers, magazines and websites.

In its simplest form, an agency such as Reuters or AP will write a short story about a news event and then will share it with any interested partners, who can add colour to it by sourcing their own quotes or adding a relevant local angle.

Opinion As Fact

A perfect example of this is a recent RTE article entitled “BMW hits one million electric vehicles, targeting two million by 2025.”

This article purports that BMW has sold a huge number of electric vehicles, but the meat of the piece centres on the manufacturer’s assertion that continuing to burn harmful fossil fuels will be crucial to its business and that it won’t divest from fossil fuel vehicles until there is a better charging infrastructure network.

This is opinion.

RTE has used its platform, its name, its reputation, to allow BMW to promote falsehoods which are completely at odds with the urgent warning by the IPCC that we must cut fossil fuel use if we are to tackle the Climate Crisis and remain within a liveable world with a ceiling of 1.5°C warming.

It should read:

"It is gravely concerning to see automotive brands still promoting the idea of fossil fuel vehicles as a 'sustainable' option. This is entirely at odds with the latest IPCC report which clearly and repeatedly states that we must reduce fossil fuel consumption at a rapid rate to sustain a liveable world below 1.5°C of warming. Failure to do so will consign millions to death and displace billions more within our lifetime."

The implication of allowing brands to greenwash is that millions more will die annually and billions more will be displaced by the Climate Crisis. This is essential context which was left out.

Granted it is their editorial choice to leave this out, just as it is their editorial choice to run this article and the opinions of manufacturers in the first place.

While RTE did reply to us about this article, they refused to address our specific questions about allowing corporations to greenwash through syndicated articles which read more like advertorial copy than journalism.

These questions were:

1) Why does RTE believe it is appropriate to run promotional content from car companies verbatim without offering any balance regarding the claims made therein?

2) What will RTE do to ensure that it is clear to readers that this is advertorial content based on press releases? Will you ensure that future press releases such as this are tagged as "Sponsored content" or similar?

3) RTE is still conflating electric vehicles with electrified vehicles, which belies the latter's reliance on fossil fuels. How do you respond to the suggestion that this undermines your previous pledge to step up your Climate Crisis coverage?

We will update our readers if RTE does come back on these with suitable, non-PR answers.

In summary, Toyota and VW promote the idea that developing nations – especially those in the Global South – will need to continue burning fossil fuels well into the middle of this century, as there isn’t enough of a public charging network for electric cars in these nations.

This article does not reflect that these nations are likely to already be experiencing the most extreme impacts of the Climate Crisis, with the majority of the 5 million annual deaths attributed to the Climate Emergency resulting in these countries.

Nor does it reflect that these corporations could invest in charging networks to make them more robust – see our article Why Car Companies Should Fund EV Charging Infrastructure.

Our feelings about this article and RTE’s lack of balance – or lack of any effort to detail the climate implications of the opinions from car manufacturers – can be summed up best by our email to them calling this out:

“We’re conscious that this is a syndicated story from Reuters, but it is incredibly alarming to see RTE running this kind of story without any balance. It is, after all, just a press release from a car company that has been responsible for some of the most heinous greenwashing about EVs, and a company which has yet to have a single EV in its line-up.”

“It is particularly troubling to see this run during the conclusion of COP26, and not to have any reference to the Climate Crisis or the role of cars in worsening the Climate Crisis.”

That’s right, RTE ran this article on the final day of COP26 – they platformed Toyota and allowed them to spread harmful disinformation even as the conference was concluding.

This came just months after RTE News Editor, Jon Williams, issued a public apology for not covering the Climate Crisis in depth, and promised to increase its efforts on this front. Words that are frankly empty at this point.

However, it can be incredibly hard to tell what influence a brand has had on an article, and where the line between the publication printing the article and the person/company who wrote it begins and ends.

A great example of this occurred in the past week in the Irish Examiner – an article titled “Six of the most economical cars on sale today”.

The premise of this article was simple: running costs are a key factor for people buying new cars, so let’s look at the cheapest ones to run so people can make informed decisions.

The only issue?

The article completely overlooks all battery electric vehicles (BEVs) – which are by far the single cheapest cars to run in terms of energy use, and which also offer significant savings for maintenance costs. If this list were non-biased, the whole list would be BEVs and it would have been a golden opportunity to have educated readers about the economic –and climate – benefits of electric cars.

Worse still, the Irish Examiner elected to publish this.

There is no qualifying statement from the Examiner, no change from the copy which appears on other websites. The only difference is that, above the article, sits the Irish Examiner masthead – they are lending their reputation and credence to this article – they are allowing misinformation to be platformed.

This is not to say that the Examiner necessarily believes this, and it is not to say that journalists at the Examiner are engaging in climate denial. In fact, there can be few national publications in Ireland which have so regularly covered the pressing need for a just climate transition quite as in-depth as the Examiner has – through the exemplary work of Pádraig Hoare in particular.

However, it is an opportunity for us to look at the value and consequences of syndicated media in the face of the Climate Crisis.

Our journalists are under increasing pressure to publish more articles per day, to get more engagement through them on social media – this makes their time ever more precious and makes it easier for PR companies to exploit through well-crafted press releases which lighten the load by providing quick-wins.

Granted there are likely plenty of syndicated articles which are adding value, which are making journalists’ lives easier on a daily basis, but these examples demonstrate that there is a flaw in the editorial system where misinformation and greenwashing can readily slip through the editorial cracks.

The solution?

We will keep up the pressure on publications, and keep challenging them on biased, unbalanced content in the hope that we can effect changes which will add better safeguards and hold corporations as accountable for their words as their actions (or lack thereof).

In the meantime, we urge our readers to always stop and consider the source of an article – even those printed in a well-known publication – and question its bias and integrity. Don’t blindly accept what is being sold to you, and feel empowered to speak up where you see standards falling short of your expectations.

We will only negate the worst outcomes of the Climate Crisis if all work together, and if everyone is aware of the full extent of what we face within our lifetime. A free, fair and unbiased media is fundamental to this – and we cannot allow this to be compromised.

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