Best Practices for Reporting on Science and Research
Science reporting is often not palatable to the general public.
The journalist often acts as the bridge between the public and society at large. The public is composed of people whose lives are all over the place in terms of education, wealth, access to news, and access to information, but each has their own functioning role in society. Without communication between these societal roles, society itself would cease to function — so the role of the media is integral to keeping society functioning.
However, not everybody is going to understand the terminology outside their role in society, and this can present an additional barrier to the aforementioned composition of the public. That information needs to be understood in as plain a term as possible in order for it to have any sort of relevance for public consumption.
How can journalists best do this?
DON’T RUSH
Learning and cross referencing scientific findings is a dense process. Not only that, but distilling pages upon pages of research into an easy-to-grasp concept is a process. The media at large has been criticized for highlighting or embellishing facts for engagement rather than including all key facts in reporting. Data doesn’t exist in a vacuum and it will need to be cross-referenced with larger bodies of study and similar subjects in order for there to be a story about that data.
BE TRANSPARENT ABOUT EVERYTHING REGARDING YOUR SOURCES
Scientific studies use the scientific method and therefore are very formulaic. That means you can expect (and need) to report on things like sample sizes, the controls and sponsor(s), if any, behind the study (for conflict of interest purposes) and also the risks, downsides, and unaccounted for data in the study. Cross reference the data with similar studies and make the comparison between these points of data clear and concise for the average person.
DON’T QUALIFY THE DATA
The above leads into this next point — the data needs to speak for itself.
Your role as the journalist is to present the information in a way that can be easily consumed, not in a way that comments on or assumes a correlation that is not otherwise explicitly outlined in the research. The audience should interpret the data for themselves, but the data should still tell a clear story by itself.
CITE YOUR SOURCES
This may seem obvious, but where you cull these resources from is especially important to share with the public. Share all links to original research and databases as well as any tools that you were able to use to make the search comprehensible for yourself. This ensures transparency in your work and upholds your commitment to communication rather than commentary.
TALK TO THE PEOPLE WHO CONDUCTED THE STUDY (OR STUDIES) AS WELL AS OTHER EXPERTS
Again, data doesn’t exist in a vacuum. As a journalist, the depth of your knowledge of that context may be limited, and your own research can only bring you so far. Experts in the field want to talk to the media about their findings, and you can gain a deeper insight that may help your process. This symbiosis can also ensure a good contact for interpreting research in the future.
STATISTICS SHOULD SUPPORT, NOT DEFINE
Leading with statistics is tempting because it’s the easiest “measure” of the point you are trying to make — but statistics are a single figure in a greater story. Leading with statistics may artificially inflate the importance of the figure without full context. This goes along with not qualifying the data but using quantifying means to support a greater point.
EVEN THE SMALLEST TERMINOLOGY IS IMPORTANT
Due to misunderstandings with the terms “global warming” and “climate change,” scientists have been pushing the media more and more to reframe the crisis as “global climate disruption,” as that paints a more accurate picture of what “climate change” is actually doing to the average person who may not perceive its full implications without extensive research. The public may be at first resistant to this change for political reasons, but this is fairly common when reconceptualizing.
Science is specific, careful, measured, and constantly updating, which means journalists must work within those boundaries when reporting on it. However, journalists need to give science a story and a life that the data is already telling. The public relies on the media to bridge this gap, and therefore, society relies on it as well.
