Mediatised warnings: Late, wrong, yet indispensable? Lessons from climate change and civil war

Abstract

Why should we expect the news media to play an important role in warning about transnational risks? After all, governments have their intelligence services, regulators their scientific experts, and companies their in-house or external risk-consultants, each charged with identifying relevant risks and bringing them to the attention of decision-makers. Why should the news media have any role at all? We tend not to notice the dog that did not bark, and in fact prevention of drug trafficking, terrorist attacks, or conflict escalation is good news to most, but usually not newsworthy. Nonetheless, this chapter contends that the news media still play a crucial role, for good and for bad, in amplifying or muffling warnings.