The landscape of how news leaders and researchers learn from one another

Why might news leaders and researchers want to inform each other’s work? And what might we learn from the ways it’s occurred so far?

For this report, we’ve worked to identify and categorize a range of organizations and people that touch on this idea of cross-disciplinary learning between journalists and researchers.

The list below outlines various interventions one could take to help journalists and researchers inform each other about each other’s work. It is sorted by three overall approaches or “purposes” for participation on the part of the journalist:

• Purpose: Learn from or alongside others’ expertise
• Purpose: Address a news challenge, but with integrated expertise
• Purpose: Collaborate intentionally and mutually

For each, we’ve shared examples. For each example, we pose questions to help explore what might differentiate the approach from others. Specifically, we ask:

• Audience: What kind of journalist audience does this serve?
• Benefit: How might the journalist stand to benefit?
• Exposure: Is this exposing journalists to ideas from research or researchers themselves, or does it require existing relationships?
• Interaction: What level of exchange does it encourage?
• Researcher motivation: Why might a researcher take part?

Facilitating successful exchanges, whether formal or informal, requires understanding the priorities of both journalists and non-news experts. This framework, which encompasses both, can add to existing insights elsewhere. That includes how researcher and practitioner collaboration has worked in other fields and guidance for a specific newsroom’s collaboration with a non-news partner.

After this list, we highlight “bright spots” for all those interested in building or supporting cross-disciplinary exchanges between journalists and researchers.  

Purpose: Learn from or alongside others’ expertise

Some interventions are built for direct learning and incorporation of expertise from outside of journalism; it is why news leaders participate.

There are online resources that focus on learning expertise from others.

One way news leaders can learn about research (and researchers) that might help their craft is from publications and sites dedicated to that goal. Niche publications exist that curate studies, including RQ1 (focused on media and journalism research specifically) and Better Conflict Bulletin (more focused on bridging divides but often touching on digital and media topics).

• Audience: Targets curious journalists who seek to follow research and ideas that can help their craft.
• Benefit: Helps journalists improve their work with research insights, in a manner that fits daily habits and behavior (e.g. checking email).
• Exposure: Provides exposure to ideas but does not facilitate direct exchange.
• Interaction: Builds journalists’ awareness of researchers; interaction between journalists and researchers is limited.
• Researcher motivation: Increase reach of work and awareness of work among journalists.

There are in-person events for journalists that focus on learning expertise from others.

Programs exist that gather journalists in a physical space where they can learn about research and ideas that can help their craft. These can come from longstanding institutions: The Faith Angle Forum (focused on helping journalists understand religion and the public square) started at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and is now at The Aspen Institute. Another is Perspectives (focused on bringing in ideas more generally from outside of journalism to journalists), started by journalists themselves.*

• Audience: Targets curious journalists who seek to explore research and can step away from daily work.
• Benefit: Helps journalists improve their work with research insights, in a setting removed from daily work that might allow the ideas to stick.
• Exposure: Provides exposure to ideas and adds a community element that might encourage future engagement with non-news experts.
• Interaction: Facilitates direct exchange between journalists and researchers.
• Researcher motivation: Increases reach of work with possibility of new connections to journalists.

Purpose: Address a news challenge, but with integrated expertise

Some interventions involve indirect learning and incorporation of expertise from outside journalism; it is not necessarily why news leaders participate, but a benefit.

Programs and resources for journalists can be informed by research and expertise.

Organizations can build programming and resources based on research; they can even facilitate their own collaborations with researchers. This is the case with the Oklahoma Media Center (which serves Oklahoma news organizations); they worked with local academics to study media trust in the state, which preceded grant and training programs to address the findings. Trusting News (which helps newsrooms demonstrate credibility and build trust) also often points to research for the individual recommendations it makes and has built resources based on collaborations with researchers.**

• Audience: Targets journalists working on a problem they face, not necessarily those looking for research.
• Benefit: Helps journalists address the problem in front of them, with expertise integrated where relevant.
• Exposure: Provides exposure to ideas more often than researchers.
• Interaction: Can allow for some direct exchange between journalists and researchers (e.g., news leaders and researchers collaborating on an experiment that leads to findings; or Q&As for a wider group on what was done.)
• Researcher motivation: Informs the project/resource through collaboration and creates new opportunities for publication, as well as reach and relationships.

There are in-person events for journalists centered around their  challenges, but with integrated expertise.

Organizations can incorporate non-news expertise in events organized around the problems journalists want to address. This is the case with API Local News Summits at the American Press Institute (which serves news leaders), where we organize invitation-based, participatory events on pressing challenges in local media. The summits gather dozens of news leaders alongside a curated group of non-news experts whose expertise is woven into the programming. This is similar to training offered by Good Conflict (which helps people in various fields reimagine conflict).** The work is organized around the challenge with non-news insight integrated at relevant times.

• Audience: Targets journalists working on a problem they face, not necessarily those looking for research.
• Benefit: Helps journalists address the problem in front of them, with integrated expertise where relevant. Forms new connections between researchers and journalists.
• Exposure: Provides exposure to both ideas and researchers themselves.
• Interaction: Allows for direct exchange between journalists and researchers at relevant points.
• Researcher motivation: Helps explore new applications of research or new lines of inquiry.

There are project-focused cohorts around challenges, where expertise is integrated.

Organizations can bring non-news expertise into longer-term support around the problems journalists want to address. This is the case in some cohort programs run by journalism support organizations. For example, the Solutions Journalism Network (which helps journalists rigorously report on responses to social problems) has done this in fellowship programs, such as its Complicating the Narratives fellows program. This program helped journalists use conflict mediation techniques to “surface deeper truths about the communities they cover,” teaching such concepts and also bringing in guest speakers. The Local Media Association has incorporated climate communication experts from George Mason University and elsewhere as resources for participants in its Covering Climate Collaborative.

• Audience: Targets journalists working on a problem they face, not necessarily those looking for research.
• Benefit: Helps journalists address the problem in front of them, with expertise integrated where relevant. Forms new connections between researchers and journalists.
• Exposure: Provides exposure to both ideas and researchers themselves.
• Interaction: Allows for direct exchange between journalists and researchers at relevant points over time.
• Researcher motivation: Helps explore new applications of research or new lines of inquiry.

Purpose: Collaborate intentionally and mutually

Some interventions are built for shared goals: both journalists and non-news experts participate, knowing what they’re doing and for a common cause.

In some programs, journalists and researchers can pitch projects together.

Organizations can offer funded opportunities for journalists and experts to collaborate. This is the case with a program for the Center for Cooperative Media (which supports local journalism, including collaborative journalism); it opened applications for “civic science” collaboration grants.

• Audience: Targets journalists with ties to researchers and a shared interest.
• Benefit: Helps journalists address the problem in front of them, strengthened by expertise and increased capacity.
• Exposure: Relationship already likely exists, at least to some extent.
• Interaction: Requires direct exchange between journalists and researchers over time.
• Researcher motivation: Varies. Helps create new opportunities for publication, potential to increase quality of work, increases reach of work, helps local journalism and/or helps fund work.

Researchers and journalists can also collaborate outside of formal programs.

Collaborations can happen on one-off and local levels, where news leaders and non-news experts come together to address a challenge. This is the case with the Colorado State University Center for Public Deliberation and the Fort Collins Coloradoan, which worked together to reimagine the local opinion section using expertise from public deliberation and psychology.*** National organizations may also collaborate with local organizations, such as when More in Common and Kansas City Star worked on understanding social connection in the metro area.

• Audience: Targets journalists with ties to researchers and a shared interest.
• Benefit: Helps journalists address the problem in front of them, strengthened by expertise and with increased capacity.
• Exposure: Relationship already likely exists, at least to some extent.
• Interaction: Requires direct exchange between journalists and researchers over time.
• Researcher motivation: Varies. Helps create new opportunities for publication, potential to increase quality of work, increases reach of work, helps local journalism, helps explore new applications of research and/or helps fund work.

Fellowships also allow journalists to address a challenge in proximity to researchers.

Organizations, especially universities, may offer opportunities for journalists to pursue a challenge in a setting with relevant researchers. This is the case with fellowship programs serving journalists, such as the Knight-Wallace Fellowships at the Wallace House Center for Journalists at the University of Michigan and the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford University. In these cases, journalists work on their proposed challenge during an academic year and with access to world-class resources and faculty support.

• Audience: Targets journalists ready to address a challenge, open to help from outside of journalism.
• Benefit: Helps journalists address the problem in front of them.
• Exposure: Relationship does not have to already exist.
• Interaction: Requires direct exchange between journalists and researchers over time.
• Researcher motivation: Varies. Helps researchers explore new applications of their research or new lines of inquiry. Helps support local journalism.

Reflections & Notes

All of these speak to different levels of openness and intent. And different approaches to facilitating exchange likely reinforce one another.

Settings where journalists gather to address challenges can create new ties between news leaders and researchers. Those relationships allow for individual collaborations with mutual intent. The content and spaces where journalists learn directly from subject matter experts keep the value of any exchange top of mind and serve people actively interested (e.g., journalists who were exposed in a program).

 

* The American Press Institute sponsored 2023 and 2024 events organized by Perspectives.
** The American Press Institute has provided significant financial support to Trusting News, an independent organization previously co-hosted by the Reynolds Journalism Institute and API.
*** The American Press Institute provided a grant to the Coloradoan, a Fort Collins newspaper, for this collaboration with the Center for Public Deliberation. The CPD has worked with other local media in the state as well, including Rocky Mountain PBS. 

This project was made possible through the support of a grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation (funder DOI 501100011730) to better understand how local news leaders and researchers can learn from the other to improve local journalism and limit polarization in their communities (TWCF-2023-32603). The opinions expressed in this report and its excerpt are those of the organizer(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc.