Dr. David Robbins:

On the funding question, it might be an idea to use the new media commission as a means of directing funding for special projects such as coverage of COPs and so on. Media organisations could apply through the media commission for funding to send journalists to cover special projects. There would be a resistance to direct State intervention in the media market by having a kind of public servant approach, whereby somebody is employed by the Government as an environment correspondent in a newsroom. Funding has to be at arm's length, either through the new media commission or some other body set up to administer those funds.

To go back to the Deputy's opening remarks about the headline in the newspaper today, in my experience of dealing with the five or six media organisations with which I have been working, there is a huge need for climate literacy, as I said in my statement earlier, but there is also a need for literacy on the other side, on the science side, about how the media works, how journalists go about their business and how they communicate. The norms of science vis-à-visthe norms of journalism are almost like oil and water. Scientists need to be trained in how to deal with the media and put their research out there in a way that does not obscure their findings or the import of their research. We have to remember that the media are not an arm of Government. This is an independent sector of its own that has its own norms and its own way of doing things. Often it does not operate in the way that we would like but we must understand the way the media work, while also encouraging them to change the way they approach this problem. We must start from a position of understanding how the media do things.