The research-practice gap in journalism: Why it exists and how we can address it

 

Academic researchers can help journalists, publishers and content producers through the massive shifts in their industry. There is, however, palpable disconnect between the academy and those within the field. We call this disconnect the research-practice gap in journalism — and it’s a gap that we argue must be bridged.

Written by a passionate group of journalists and academics, this report examines the gap as it exists in the U.S., and proposes ways to bridge it. We imagine a future where evidence, data and peer assessment support decision-making in journalism — whether by reporters, editors or news executives — and where journalism better informs the questions researchers ask.

While academic studies have their place as the focus of journalists’ reporting, we’re concerned with what research can tell us about how journalism should be practiced and produced.

Some key takeaways

Why the gap exists

Newsrooms need practical solutions now, while most academics need to publish and get tenure. Most journalism organizations don’t have the time or resources to grapple with densely worded academic papers that often fail to highlight the practical implications of their results. These research projects can also have limited accessibility, as the studies are usually published in subscription-based journals that charge up to $1,000 or more for annual subscriptions. Academics can take critical stances in their research, pointing out flaws and blind spots in current practices, instead of providing practical solutions. Such work can be useful but can make journalists feel that researchers are armchair critics rather than partners invested in solving problems. Newsrooms perceive academic researchers as extractive instead of collaborative, sometimes considering their presence more of a hindrance than a help. Plus, academic researchers often lack recent industry experience, which makes them less able to understand and react to current newsroom pressures.

Why it matters

News organizations today face existential challenges including declining revenue, shrinking staffs, public hostility toward journalists and a lack of time for professional development. The crises now facing news organizations are felt at every level, from the beat reporter to the CEO, and at every type and size of newsroom — although the way these challenges are expressed can vary considerably, in terms of the resources organizations have available and the leeway individual employees have to enact change. Because of these roadblocks, media organizations and academics should work together consistently to learn from each other. One example of fruitful collaboration is a University of Wisconsin-led training program, which saw UW-Madison journalism professor Sue Robinson train 22 newsrooms to help them leverage academic insights on engagement, transparency and solutions-oriented journalism. Another effort is the LIFT Project, which Michigan State professor Danielle Brown created to identify how the media can better address the information needs of Black Americans in the Midwest.

For many newsrooms, “audience research” tends to mean “metrics” — things like page views, time on page, how readers found the website and so on. But academic research on audiences goes a layer further and uses various quantitative and qualitative methods — from surveys and content analysis to focus groups and experiments — that can reveal additional evidence-based insights. Academics also add investigative capacity that is often missing from newsrooms seeking to know more about optimizing workflows and audience reception. But, as alluded to above, academics and newsrooms alike find it difficult to form such partnerships.

Efforts to bridge the gap

The landscape surrounding the gap is complex. It includes news organizations, academic researchers, nonprofit and for-profit research outfits, journalism support organizations and trade publications. Academic centers are bridging the gap in several ways. Examples include Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, which runs fellowship programs inviting academics, journalists and policymakers to develop and publish research impacting the industry, and the Center for Media Engagement (CME) at the University of Texas, which regularly partners with news organizations to conduct field research.

Not all efforts to bridge the gap have worked, but we can also learn from past missteps. For example, CME and API tried creating quarterly research summaries for journalists, but they struggled to find enough papers featuring clear, practical implications.

Lessons from other fields

Journalism is far from the only field that deals with a research/practice divide. We can learn from other fields, including medicine and education. For example, the National Cancer Institute developed the Translational Research Program, which funds and shares results of early clinical trials with practitioners. UpToDate is a database that compiles the latest medical research and provides practical recommendations. In the field of education, The American Institutes for Research connects directly with institutions to train teachers while also working to find relevant innovations to help in the classroom. Meanwhile, Regional Educational Laboratories (REL) train educators on how to read and understand the research in the REL clearinghouse

Ways forward

Bridging the journalism/research gap is possible, but stakeholders must recognize that many of these issues are structural and will require massive systemic shifts. We suggest the following, ranging from “small potatoes” initiatives to “big fish to fry” systemic changes.

The simplest way to bridge the gap is by making sure journalists and academics spend time in the same rooms. Conferences can bring professionals from both worlds together to exchange ideas. Programming could include panels that mix scholars and journalists, summaries of research insights and ask-me-anythings between journalists and researchers on key topics. Universities can leverage relationships with alumni and neighboring newsrooms to bring research and practice together more.

Research accessibility — in terms of both obtaining and understanding the work — can also help bridge the gap. Researchers should create non-scholarly outputs based on their academic papers, such as “how-tos” or abstracts that summarize the practical ramifications of the research. Publishing the non-peer reviewed piece earlier can help the researcher to make a practical impact before their work is yesterday’s news. Academics could write more case studies analyzing how news organizations have solved problems, in a move one might call “solutions research.”

The field also needs more knowledge brokers who can understand, synthesize and translate the research to help newsrooms answer particular questions. They could act as matchmakers, connecting a newsroom with a scholar who knows how to research the topic at hand. In addition, journalism could benefit from a research dissemination platform with practical guides, case studies and tools for integrating research into daily journalistic practices. Pairing a custom AI interface with human curation might help make the platform more useful and efficient.

On the more systemic side, tenure reform could incentivize researchers to draw out real-world relevance and help newsrooms with application, rather than always seeking to expand their number of peer-reviewed articles. Both academics and practitioners would benefit from sabbaticals where they can spend significant time in each other’s environments. Journals could institute open-access “recommendations” sections on their articles, or carve out a special type of article that prioritizes solutions.

Research-focused professors and profession-based instructors should work together more, and research should inform skills classes, beginning with introductory reporting for undergraduates. Educational organizations such as the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication could revise their competencies to include research comprehension, evaluation and application, helping to inform the curricula of accredited schools.

Finally, funders need to invest in the kinds of projects we have discussed above, and more. Particular funding opportunities that stand out include supporting academic-practitioner  partnerships (with payments for newsrooms), paying personnel tasked with implementing research findings in the newsroom, opening up journal access and creating new pathways to connect researchers and newsrooms — especially trying to bring in players beyond the “usual suspects.”

The report is organized as follows:

• We break down the reasons why the gap exists.
• Next, we highlight several areas of research that offer practical insights for journalism, pointing to why bridging the gap is so important.
• We then map out the major players in this space to help readers understand the breadth of organizations that either are, or could be, involved in bridging the gap.
• We take a deeper dive into some select efforts to cross the divide, in the field of journalism and in other fields, namely medicine and education.
• Finally, we offer a menu of “ways forward”: ways to collaborate in closing the gap. These include everything from small, discrete efforts to big structural changes.

Our hope is that each reader will see at least one suggested solution that sparks something in them: a desire to work collaboratively, to chip in a small bit of time, or even an entirely new, innovative idea for bridging the gap.

In this way, we hope that professionals from all sectors of this community — reporters, editors, news executives, professors, university and departmental leadership, associations, funders and more — will be able to see the ways we can mend this divide, together.

The ultimate aim is to improve the news: the information people need to make decisions about their lives. We are hard pressed to think of a higher cause, or a more opportune time than now.

View the full report here.