Journalistic practices and science reporting in the British press

Abstract

Newspaper coverage of science is governed and shaped by both macro-level factors such as ownership and cultural resonances, and by the more micro-level factors of journalistic practices, professional values, and organizational arrangements. This study examines the characteristics and professional practices of specialist journalists involved in the coverage of science, medicine and related subjects in the British national press. It shows that they share many of their characteristics with specialist journalists in other areas: they value journalistic professionalism and skill more highly than formal training in their particular field of specialist reporting; they deploy conventional news-value criteria, but emphasize in particular the importance of a `relevance to the reader' criterion in the selection of science news; they deploy elaborate routines for securing the credibility of their reporting, including the active cultivation of a relationship of mutual trust with their sources, and a source-orientation which is distinctly institutionally- and authority-focused. Popular and quality press journalists hold clearly different images of their target audiences, although for both categories of journalists the image of the readers owes more to journalistic judgement and casual feedback than to systematic readership data. The overriding key to understanding the work of these specialists is to recognize that they are, in their practices and professional beliefs, journalists first and specialists second.