BU Research Blog

The Guardian Higher Education Network recently hosted an online discussion asking the question: ‘how can academics help science reporters get their facts straight?’  At a time when academics are increasingly under pressure to engage non-academic audiences with their work and demonstrate the impact of their research, the importance of being able to use the media as a communication channel cannot be understated.  However, the perception of working with the media is that journalists often skew facts and overstate the importance of findings, thus distorting the original research.  How then can academics help journalists to get their facts right?

The debate featured contributions from academics, science communicators and journalists, and covered issues such as accuracy, the importance of preparation and the fact that research often can’t provide the definitive answers or ground-breaking results that journalists may want.  It also veered into a wider discussion about how research is perceived in the UK and whether, in an age of social media, journalists are even needed to disseminate research results.

The full discussion can be read here.  Comments on the Q&A are now closed, but you can continue the debate in the comments section below.