Categories: OLD Media Moves

How to “cover” the solar industry

Carter Lavin writes, tongue firmly in cheek, on Clean Technica about how business journalists should write about the solar industry.

Lavin writes, “The solar industry is convoluted and relatively esoteric, so when good business reporters write about the business, it’s not a surprise that they don’t get everything correct, but it is a shame. These articles all tend to point out and ignore the same facts — which is why they have all been wrong about the future of solar power. These articles are rarely factually inaccurate, but they often lack context, mislead with incorrect data usage, or do not account for many of the more powerful factors at play.

“In fact, these articles are so formulaic, common, and wrong that I decided to save everyone a lot of time and teach you how to make one. So here is how to write a hit piece on the solar industry.

Start off with pointing out some of the industry’s success. Maybe you point to the rapidly growing employment in solar, the plummeting costs of systems, or solar’s widening geographic appeal.
Transition (often with a weather pun) about dark days ahead, clouds on the horizon, or a storm’s a brewing.

Politics!

DO: Say that the industry is reliant of government support and point out some federal government support the industry receives, like the solar investment tax credit. Then say that it looks like they will not get extended because of whatever the political issue de jure is. Past examples have been the recession, the debt ceiling, the election, and the fiscal “cliff.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.