Christian Jensen, Politiken: “Moving in a greener direction”
Politiken, one of the leading daily newspapers in Denmark, has a long tradition of social engagement. Editor-in-chief Christian Jensen has launched an ambitious programme of sensitisation on climate issues called the Green Initiative, which affects both its journalistic content and its working methods within the company.
Christian Jensen has been appointed editor-in-chief of Politiken, the daily newspaper in Copenhague, in 2016. In terms of readership, it’s the largest paid for newspaper in Denmark, in terms of changing climate issues, as Jensen explains, it’s more of a gradual change than a revolution, since he has to deal with economic issues where travel advertising — including those of high environmental costs plane travel — cannot be totally dismissed.
GEN: You are launching a “Green Initiative” at Politiken. What is it and is it a strategic move? What was your inspiration when you sat down to brainstorm?
Christian Jensen: Politiken has a long tradition for covering climate and climate changes, but also senses a still higher need — and urgency — for engaging our readers to avoid the ‘warning blindness’, as report after report points to a still more serious situation and needs to act. One of the ways to engage readers is to point to solutions and present them with ideas of how they can themselves contribute to green solutions. As for us, for years we have been a very active part of the Impact Journalism Day Project with Christian Boisredon and Sparknews and have used it to point towards more solution based journalism. But with our Green Initiative we go much further:
First of all, we have started to focus on the climate effects of our own consumption, starting with flights in our travel section, but certainly not ending there. We have started to insist on more eco-friendly travels. So, instead of writing article after article about distant places, we increasingly write about nature and adventures closer to Denmark. We will gradually increase our focus on the climate effects of all sorts of consumption and /or point to green solutions in many other areas.
The mindset is spreading. Even, as happened recently, when we test kitchen towels, we are now aware of including ecological towels and point to the climate issue. Much more can — and will — be done.
Secondly, we act ourselves. We found it hollows only to ask our readers to act and not act ourselves. So we decided to take a lead and tell how we could ourselves contribute to a greener business model, by e.g. stop flying internally in Denmark and instead use other public transportation. Obviously, when we travel outside Denmark we often can’t avoid aeroplanes, but then we pay a climate compensation. In that respect, we were confronted with a paradox: we took these steps without stopping travel companies from putting up ads in our newspaper, where people are offered flights. We faced that contradiction upfront, explaining to our readers that our economy is dependent on ads, but that we at least try to do better and greener. We move in a greener direction, but we cannot solve all problems in one ‘kick’.
Indeed, we are not privatising the climate challenges by telling our readers that they must solve them themselves. We continue to have a high degree of focus on the international and political levels, but by pointing to private solutions we engage and make people more aware of concrete ways of thinking. That will, hopefully, spill over to the more general public debate. Solutions do indeed lead towards changes, whereas constant warnings on climate change without solutions leads to disengagement and people just giving up.
The Green Initiative fits well with Politiken’s readership, which is above average when it comes to ‘green thinking’. So the initiative is already well adjusted to our readers. The ambitious part of the project is saying that change starts with ourselves.
Was the “Green Initiative” discussed with journalists and what was their feedback? Were they afraid to lose revenues from the travel and tourism sectors? How did the discussions with the marketing and the sales departments go?
The green discussions have taken place in many forums. It was also a topic for one of several recent working groups when we discussed our relation to our strategic target groups, those between 34 and 45 years old. A difficult target group for us, since they are often busy with families and might feel like they don’t have time for reading a newspaper. But if you engage them, you stand better. So discussions on how to engage them were indeed simmering, both in our journalistic departments and commercial departments.
The decision about the Green Initiative was however made by the editorial board. After that, we have had a group of colleagues from both the journalistic and the commercial departments discussing all the dilemmas like the above mentioned about flights and travel ads. We did, as stated, indeed feel a need for explaining our paradox to our readers. Commercially we haven’t felt any negative reactions, but new areas of possibilities have of course showed up, when you start focusing on ‘greener travels’ or nature tourism. Within Politiken, we only have had positive feedback.
How has this initiative changed your journalism? What will change at Politiken after this new orientation?
This initiative has already brought changes to our travel journalism and it will also bring changes to other parts of Politiken, like the discussion about the kitchen towels which I mentioned before. We also insist on sharing cars, circular solutions and so on. We had already set out this move before the Green Initiative, but it is now much more focused and strategic. We are becoming even more constructive and are getting closer to our readers and their everyday lives.
Why do you find it important to take a stand, as a news publisher, in regards to a better environment?
Of course it’s important, because the climate situation is alarming, and Politiken has a long tradition for engaging ourselves and our readers. Right now we participate in an ambitious European project, Europe Talks, with Die Zeit, Financial Times, arte.tv, Repubblica and many, many other media companies (16 in total) to both promote respect for the political dialogue instead of ‘echo chamber-shoutings’ and a pan-European debate of European Parliament elections in May. We have previously collected money for democratic Arab newspapers under the Arab Spring, so they could survive the pressure from authoritarian politicians and we ourselves could offer our readers a ‘share’ in their struggle. And of course, Politiken should also engage in the climate discussion, which is the most important agenda for generations right now.
What we do is emphasising climate and green thinking in our journalism — just as every newspaper prioritise its coverage every day. For whatever topic, we somehow take a stand, but we do so as journalists and we emphasise the need of being fair critics and objective in the coverage of those chosen topics. But I’d say your question should rather be: what does it tell us about media if it does not focus on climate changes?
How much time will the implementation of the “Green Initiative” take?
It requires a change of mindset. It is hard to say how many years it will take, but change is happening. And you know, the main point was to start. Then the discussion is spreading to other departments reflecting on how they can contribute.
Aren’t you afraid of taking a stand/advocating for what people should or shouldn’t do? Where do you stop informing the public and start lobbying for a cause?
We are informing the public in everything regarding our journalistic work at Politiken. Besides that, we have clear priorities and points of view of what we are covering, as mentioned above. But at the same time, we have a long tradition for engagement in society and important discussions.
Have you gotten any feedback from your audience? What do they say?
The feedback from our readers has been enormous. People not only want to get more information on the issue but also to be informed about what they can do themselves.
Will you still have advertisements for weekends in Greece or Morocco? Or will you suggest other ways to spend the weekend?
We still have advertisements for travelling around the world. We are neither against advertisement nor travel by plane. We just want to clarify to our readers about the consequences of our behaviour. As I already mentioned, we explicitly explained all this when we introduced to our readers the Green Initiative. From the start, we wanted to be completely open about our own paradoxes, which only reflects those of so many other companies and households.
How will this affect your advertisement/monetisation? How much are you losing from one side and what is your strategy to get new advertisements related to leisure, travel and tourism?
No, not at all. We have talked to our advertisers and most of them understand and are satisfied with our initiative.
How did your main competitors in Denmark react? Could you see any change in their strategy after your announcement?
In Denmark, we mostly stand alone with this Green Initiative. Some competitors say that we are making politics out of the climate issue, but at Politiken we have a long tradition for activism and are completely comfortable about our initiative.
Do you consider the “Green Initiative” a pioneering one? Will many other news organisations follow Politiken in Northern Europe and then in the rest of Europe?
I really hope so. This article might be part of a greater inspiration.
Christian Jensen, born 1972, is editor-in-chief of Politiken since 2016. He has previously worked as an investigative journalist at Berlingske, the Danish oldest national daily paper based in Copenhague. He is the chairman of the board of the journalist education at SDU (University of South Denmark), a member of Publicist Club’s board and a passionate defendant of journalism development in a time of turbulence.
