How Science Journalists Verify Numbers and Statistics in News Stories: Towards a Theory

Witsen, Anthony Van

doi:10.1080/17512786.2021.1947152

Cited by 12 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…The act of judiciously citing references, furthermore, not only safeguards against potential instances of plagiarism but also offers readers a tangible pathway to verify and validate the information being conveyed (Van Witsen & Takahashi, 2021;Vos & Thomas, 2018). In light of this rigorous and nuanced training regimen, pedagogical engagement with journalistic knowledge assumes a pivotal role in nurturing students' aptitude for crafting informative news content.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Contribution of Journalistic Knowledge to Students’ Skills in Writing News: A Study of Correlational Analysis

Wismanto,

Asropah,

Arifin

2023

JOLLT

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Journalistic knowledge serves as a robust underpinning upon which learners can refine and enhance their writing abilities, specifically in the domain of news composition. The multifaceted landscape of journalism incorporates a medley of elements that collectively contribute to the cultivation of effective writing skills. The mastery of these facets plays a pivotal role in augmenting students' proficiency in articulating their ideas cogently, engaging their audience adeptly, and ensuring the meticulous conveyance of information. Against this backdrop, the present study endeavors to explore the substantive role played by journalistic knowledge in improving students' skills in writing news. To attain the research aim, the researchers applied a correlational study to find out the correlation between journalistic knowledge and students’ skills in writing news. The participants of the study consisted of 51 students of Indonesian language and literary education at the University of PGRI Semarang. The sample was taken using a simple random sampling technique. The data were collected using tests. Based on the data analysis, there is a correlation between journalistic knowledge and students’ skills in writing news. It means that the components of journalistic knowledge such as understanding the fundamental news values such as timeliness, prominence, proximity, conflict, and human interest, have contributed to helping students in writing news.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Contribution of Journalistic Knowledge to Students’ Skills in Writing News: A Study of Correlational Analysis

Wismanto,

Asropah,

Arifin

2023

JOLLT

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“…Of course, these same reservations may also apply to some closed access journals, and may not be relevant to major OA journals with high Impact Factors and recognized brands, such as PLOS Medicine or Nature Communications . Still, exploratory research suggests that some journalists are “more suspicious of open access journals, believing they lacked a credible review process” ( Van Witsen & Takahashi, 2021 , p. 10).…”

Section: Journalists’ Pre-pandemic Use Of Open Access Publications An...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Making science public: a review of journalists’ use of Open Access research

Fleerackers,

Chtena,

Pinfield

et al. 2024

F1000Res

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Science journalists are uniquely positioned to increase the societal impact of open research outputs by contextualizing and communicating findings in ways that highlight their relevance and implications for non-specialist audiences. Yet, it is unclear to what degree journalists use open research outputs, such as open access publications or preprints, in their reporting; what factors motivate or constrain this use; and how the recent surge in openly available research seen during the COVID-19 pandemic has affected this. This article examines these questions through a review of relevant literature published from 2018 onwards—particularly literature relating to the COVID-19 pandemic—as well as seminal articles outside the search dates. We find that research that explicitly examines journalists’ engagement with open access publications or preprints is scarce, with existing literature mostly addressing the topic tangentially or as a secondary concern, rather than a primary focus. Still, the limited body of evidence points to several factors that may hamper journalists’ use of these outputs and thus warrant further exploration. These include an overreliance on traditional criteria for evaluating scientific quality; concerns about the trustworthiness of open research outputs; and challenges using and verifying the findings. We also find that, while the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged journalists to explore open research outputs such as preprints, the extent to which these explorations will become established journalistic practices remains unclear. Furthermore, we note that current research is overwhelmingly authored and focused on the Global North, and the United States specifically. We conclude with recommendations for future research that attend to issues of equity and diversity, and more explicitly examine the intersections of open access and science journalism.

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“…3 Whereas another piece of research highlighted a conflict between how scientists presented statistical information to the media and how the media treated that information as unarguable truth. 4 International market research organization Ipsos found, in their 2021 Veracity Index, that 83% of the British public trusted scientists, whilst trust in journalists was down at just 28%. 5 Worldwide, the Ipsos Global Trustworthiness Index for 2021 highlighted an almost identical divide between how much the general public trusted scientists on the one hand, and journalists on the other.…”

Section: What Are the Known Problems Regarding Science Research And T...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The missing link: the quality of UK local and national online media coverage of research

Tattersall

2023

Insights the UKSG Journal

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Local and national media have always played an instrumental role in the communication of academic research to the public. In recent years, this has proved even more important due to the extensive online national and international coverage of topics such as climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic. Given that the media represent the public's first point of contact with, and key source of information about, science and research, then, as academics, we need to know, firstly, whether the media make this research easily identifiable for the public and, secondly, whether the research itself is accessible. Our study examined coverage of University of Sheffield published research in UK local and national media to explore how far it is identifiable and accessible; using data from Altmetric.com we investigated what proportion of research covered provided sufficient details to identify research, including links to the published articles and explored how much of the research was accessible via open access. A large proportion of research that featured in local media cited the journal, academic institution and author, but did not link to the article. By contrast, national media cited the author, institution or funder much less than local news websites, but often linked to the actual research article. Most articles featured were open access. The implications of this and potential reasons for the national and local differences are discussed. The missing link: the quality of UK local and national online media coverage of research Keywords media; altmetrics; scholarly communications; UK news; research communications; impact Just prior to the invention of the web in 1989, an article by the then Dean of the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri, James Atwater, pointed out, 'So everyone wants to know about science. Fair enough, we all say, but the question really is what should the people know and when should they know it?' 1 At the time of writing this, Atwater would not

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How Science Journalists Verify Numbers and Statistics in News Stories: Towards a Theory

Cited by 12 publications

References 52 publications

The Contribution of Journalistic Knowledge to Students’ Skills in Writing News: A Study of Correlational Analysis

The Contribution of Journalistic Knowledge to Students’ Skills in Writing News: A Study of Correlational Analysis

Making science public: a review of journalists’ use of Open Access research

The missing link: the quality of UK local and national online media coverage of research

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