Ashley Lime is a digital journalist at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), based in Nairobi – Kenya. Ashley has more than 10 years of experience in the media industry, having worked as a reporter, copy editor and broadcast journalist across both local and international media, covering subjects such as climate change, security, health, education, and human-interest stories. She is also a 2017 Alfred Friendly fellow and a 2018 Women in News (WIN-WAN IFRA) fellow.
Plenary 1. Wednesday 2 July. 13.30-16.30 – Communicating with the public, policy makers and climate.
There are a lot of unique opportunities for journalists covering climate change to reach wider audiences. Journalists could gradually move away from traditional reporting and incorporate animation, infographics, data visualisation, interactives, illustrations, among others, in their storytelling. However, there are many challenges, one being journalists lacking training to enable them report sufficiently on climate change and in the long run raise awareness on different aspects of the phenomenon. Newsrooms often lack of resources and capacity to cover climate change adequately and consistently. There’s a lot of misinformation and disinformation in Africa when it comes to reporting about climate change.