The Stern Review of Climate Change: Media Coverage Survey

Today there has been a veritable hurricane of reporting about the just released Nicholas Stern review of the economics of climate change. Matters where complicated by speculation relating to UK govornment policies that have been rumoured to be announced along with the report.

UK National Press Coverage

Broadsheets (Left/Liberal)
Both the Guardian and the Indy devote substantial space to the stern report, prospects for green taxes and other climate change related stories. Good reviews are given of the main points from the stern report. Green taxes are supported and the general criticism is of to many fine words and not enough action.

Independant
Stern Review, Green Taxes

Guardian
Stern Review, Green Taxes

Broadsheets (Rights/Conservative)
The times and telegraph perform admiarably as Tory papers, they manage to give good accounts of the basic science of the report. They also publish entirely disconnected articles on green taxes. The times manages to write a slightly negative but not openly hostile article on green taxes (which both the libdems and tories broadly support). The Telegraph really impressed me by not speaking out against green taxes at all, after giving a very good review of the stern review and evena short video clip it merely states business concerns about international competativeness if the uk moves without other major economies. The FT was always going to be a special case. A good review of the report (perhaps the best from any paper!) is followed by little talk of uk green taxes and quite a bit of thought about the possible expansion of the EU ETS. I might start treading the FT more after this.

Times
Stern Review, Green Taxes

Telegraph
Stern Review, Green Taxes

Financial Times (perhaps free market but non partisan?)
Stern Review, Green Taxes

More serious tabloids (Entire political spectrum)
The daily express and mail played this in an entirely duplicitous manner. They both reported Sir Nicholas Stern's concluions as reasonable and then went on to trash govornment policy measure being proposed as a result of the report. The common line was, hard working families are going to be laboured with yet another stealth tax. The fact that what is largely being discussed by all three parties is tax restructuring was entirely absent.

Daily Express
Stern Review, Green Taxes

Daily Mail
Stern Review and Green Taxes

Less serious tabloids (Entire political spectrum)
The Sun leads with a front page article, we are going to save the planet and you are paying. The coverage of Sterns Review is present only in a letter penned by Tony Blair. Bearing in mind this interesting dichotomy, it seems quite obvious that blears concenrs about climate change are being presented as an elaborate ploy to raise taxes. The star mentions the stern review in brief but relatively objectively, it dosent mention green taxes. The People dosent make any mention of climate change. The Mirror gives a reasonable account of the importance of the review and a fairly supportive line on green taxes.

The Sun
Stern Review, Green Taxes

The Star
Stern Review, n/a

The People
n/a

The Mirror
Stern Review, Green Taxes