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Recently, a female Greenpeace protestor gate-crashed a black-tie dinner in London attended by the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer and Conservative leadership contender Philip Hammond. The activist was roughly grabbed by another government minister, Mark Field. Some called it a justified intervention, others suggested it was a straightforward case of assault. Either way, it was 鈥� fleetingly at least 鈥� big news.

When Field apologised, he explained that 鈥渋n the current climate I felt the need to act decisively to close down the threat to the safety of those present鈥�. Ironic, because that鈥檚 what the protest was all about in the first place 鈥� 鈥渢he current climate鈥� - and the way it is changing for the worse. But in many media reports, Field鈥檚 perhaps accidental play on words was the only real reference to the climate crisis. Our quickly deteriorating environment is seemingly just not newsworthy enough by itself to merit mainstream coverage and needs the added piquancy of the race to become prime minister, a peaceful invasion by some crimson clad activists, and the apparent violence employed to repel it.

Otherwise, perhaps we don鈥檛 read, listen to or watch enough about this single biggest threat to our planet. My own research into mainstream UK TV coverage either side of the global financial crisis reveals that both BBC and ITV reduced the news time given to covering the environment/climate change/green policies on flagship bulletins. Coverage declined from 2.5% (ITV) and 1.6% (BBC) of total airtime in 2007 to respectively 0.2% and 0.3% in 2014. Collectively, while it was the 15th most prominent category out of 32 news topics in 2007, by 2014 it had fallen to the 31st position. 聽But perhaps the reasons for this marginalising of climate change goes deeper than a simple case of environmental news not being apparently exciting enough in its own right. Another part of the deeper explanation lies within the general evolution of business and financial journalism, and how it might fall short of its normative aims.

There are playful suggestions that when Joseph warned the Pharaohs about the agricultural problems ahead, it was the first instance of financial punditry. There is some consensus that financial journalism as we know it began in the 16th century when trade information distributed and shared, but by the beginning of the 19th such reporting was considered influential enough to change the way people thought about business, finance and economics. 聽It is unusually impactful as a news beat; journalists after all, can influence markets and fortunes with their reporting. More than once has the 鈥渂uy shares, tip shares, sell shares鈥� routine proved too much of a temptation. In 2006 for example, a Daily Mirror journalist was handed a custodial sentence for doing exactly that.

More widely, the charge sheet waved at financial journalism is not criminal, but is serious nevertheless. At a time around 2007/8, claim the critics, when financial journalists should have spotted the biggest financial crisis since the Wall Street Crash, they seemed to be looking the other way. As Dean Starkman noted in his book about this apparent failing, financial journalism was 鈥淭he Watchdog that Didn鈥檛 Bark鈥�. The issue, continued the critics, is that journalists had become too close to their city sources, and that many simply saw their job as serving the market. Peter Jay 鈥� former journalist turned diplomat 鈥� once suggested that he only wrote his column for three people, and two of those worked in the UK Treasury. Such a narrow focus acquiesced to business and investor communities, but not to those interested in more blue-collar concerns such as labour markets, unions and the minimum wage.

Undoubtedly, though, the financial crisis of 2008 changed things. For one thing, as Professor Steve Schifferes noted, there was a new audience of ordinary people who wanted to know more about their own financial life since it seemed that they were being asked to take more responsibly for it. And financial journalism itself changed too, with the emphasis as Maria Joutsenvirta puts it, switching from 鈥淲all Street鈥� to 鈥淢ain Street�