Fighting back against bad press

Mainstream media have a very strong tendency to publish negative stories concerning renewables. That’s true for newspapers, but also for most international and national business and policy magazines. Constant and repeated attacks on the prohibitive cost and even negative environmental impact of renewables seem designed to cast doubt on the viability of green technologies.

No-one needs to be reminded that the press has a huge impact on people’s mind. So it’s clear that recurrent bad press is a major problem for our industry. And yet, it increasingly looks like we have almost accepted this unfavourable PR situation. It doesn’t have to be so.

Why are the media biased against renewables? This is indeed strange considering that, unlike the oil and gas industry, all the good stories are on our side. Renewable power is the future, the route to energy independence, the solution to impending environmental disaster, it creates good manufacturing and installation jobs, and in many places, is already reaching grid parity.

The bottom line is that the renewables industry has a value proposition that is ten times stronger than our fossil-fuel rivals. In all honesty, it should be an easy sell. And yet, we have failed to exploit the opportunities. In my opinion, that is because we have underestimated the importance of investing in communication.

First of all, we need to capitalise on the good stories we have to tell — in other words, seize every PR chance available. There is no shortage of good stories to exploit. We need to proactively engage with journalists to get those messages across and get positive stories published. There are plenty of opportunities for opinion pieces, interviews that are there to be taken.

But it’s not only about pushing good stories through, it is also about not letting factual errors go unchallenged. We need to engage in systematic rectification of false information using all the tools available to us.

One specific challenge is the “grey zones” surrounding renewables. There are a lot of facts around renewables, and depending on how a journalist decides to interpret them, he can come up with two totally different stories, one in favour of renewables and one against, and both stories will have the appearance of the truth.

It is therefore important to engage with the journalists proactively, as individuals, on an on-going basis, in order to become their sources of information. By increasing our engagement and helping the media see more clearly through the “grey zones”, we will greatly improve the chances of getting positive press.

Article originally published on Recharge News by Jonathan Collings