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In 2019, mentions of “oil worker” in Norwegian newspaper coverage of climate change more than quadrupled, mostly reflecting a rise in politicians vying for the support of this critical constituency. This article explores the rise of the oil worker in newspaper coverage in the period 2017–2021, identifying the main agents of change in the dominant narratives and demonstrating that agency tends to be ascribed to politicians rather than to the oil workers themselves, despite an outpouring of “thank-yous” to those workers for their contribution to society. We also distinguish between the various ways in which oil workers have been framed as heroes and find that newspapers in the Western part of the country portrayed oil workers as “national income heroes”, while left-wing papers attached a sense of pride to the social democratic history of the oil industry. Opinions were more polarized on the potential for oil workers to become climate heroes. While some suggested a conditional form of heroism, the “heroes of tomorrow”, based on the willingness of the workers to transition, others focused on the bravery of oil workers in seeking dialogue with their counterparts in the climate debate and thus becoming the “heroes of couples therapy”. This work was supported by Norges Forskningsråd: [grant number 283345].

Only a few years ago a normative turn away from objective reporting in Norwegian climate change journalism took place. Journalists begun to ask themselves whether it was their job to rescue the planet. In this article, several dimensions of the ideal of objectivity are explored among Norwegian climate change journalists: balance, reflecting public opinion, truthfulness and neutrality. The truth-seeking ideal is illustrated by the conflict between political and natural realism in climate change politics: How large do cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases need to be? The author defends a critical realist ideal of objectivity, which does not have to be in contradiction with agenda-driven journalism.