Reviving the Balance Norm? Navigating Tensions Between Objectivity and Advocacy in Journalism on Climate Solutions

While there is a broad societal call towards climate action, the extent to which climate journalists see a role for themselves as climate advocates remains unknown. This study explores how climate journalists perceive and enact the journalistic role of advocacy when reporting on climate solutions, through semi-structured interviews with 21 Dutch climate journalists. Our results show that Dutch climate journalists are hesitant about the advocacy role, in part suggesting that it may lead to biased journalism and could jeopardize their credibility. Instead, interviewees seemingly prefer the journalistic balance norm, whereby they offer audiences a contextualized portrayal of climate solutions that includes multiple actors and viewpoints. In this solution-centric context climate journalists revive the balance norm that was previously retired in climate journalism, albeit in a new light. We show how climate journalists hold a paradoxical relationship with objectivity: although climate journalists largely agree that absolute objectivity does not exist, they still feel it is desirable to strive after. Overall, our results feed into debates about trust in legacy news media and the increasing need for climate action.