“The Untold Story: Climate change sinks below the headlines” is a research report prepared for presentation to international media attending the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy in April 2016.
The report provides an analysis of the depth of media reporting around climate change in two distinct periods: two months before COP21 and two months after COP21. Specifically, it explores whether issues connecting climate change, food security, agriculture and migration made headlines, and if so, how much prominence these stories were given. The report asks what expert voices were heard throughout the stories and whether farmers or migrants themselves had a voice. And finally, the report looks at what newsreaders understand about food and climate-related migration and their impression of media coverage provided.
Among some of its key findings:
 Climate change stories were either completely absent or their numbers decreased in major media outlets in Europe and the United States before and after COP21 in Paris.
 Coverage on the consequences of climate change such as migration, fell by half in the months after COP21 and people directly impacted by climate change rarely had a voice in stories or were not mentioned at all.
 News consumers want climate change issues and solutions to be given more prominence in media outlets and, in particular, want more information on the connections between climate change, food insecurity,conflict and migration.
The research findings are drawn from an analysis of the content of news stories across influential and popular media outlets: TF1 and France 2 in France, RAI and LA7 in Italy, BBC and Channel 4 in the United Kingdom and CBS and NBC in the United States, as well as the front pages of print editions of Le Monde and Libération in France, Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica in Italy,
The Guardian and Daily Mail in the United Kingdom and the New York Times and USA Today in the United States. Monitoring the main news bulletins and front pages of newspapers enabled the analysis of the reporting on climate change, agriculture and migration that appeared in the mainstream media and seen by all audience members, not just those searching specifically for stories on those thematic areas.